


i'm gonna be right by your side no matter what

by qwertynerd97 (Daffidill23)



Series: Dark of the Knight 'verse [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Minimal Salt, Mistaken Identity, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Secret Identity, Soulmates, Writing on Skin, and im taking everyone down with me, i fell sideways into this ship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-05 23:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21216803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daffidill23/pseuds/qwertynerd97
Summary: Damian has only ever had one person that was on his side no matter what, and he’s never met her in person.  Nevertheless, the words his soulmate writes are his only balm through the turmoil of his life.  It’s too bad he has to keep so many secrets from her, for her own safety.Marinette has been in awe of her soulmate since she was very little.  He has so many interesting hobbies, and he always knows what to say when she’s feeling down.  It’s hard keeping secrets from him, but she’ll do whatever’s necessary to keep him safe.A Daminette soulmate fic where the things you write on your skin appear on the skin of your soulmate.





	1. in the dark of the night

**Author's Note:**

> I was reading Batman fics when I came across the [Maribat](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1477583) series. It seemed like an interesting crossover fic, so I read and enjoyed it, and moved on. But then I came across another, Daminette fic, and another, and then next thing I knew I had fallen sideways into this ship. So here’s my take on this wonderful nonsense, with some soulmate shenanigans to thicken the plot.
> 
> **Details of how soulmates work in this verse:** Only writing/drawing that is done by the soulmate transfers, and it has to sink in past the first layer of skin. So a parent or friend writing on your skin wouldn’t transfer to a soulmate, and makeup wouldn’t transfer either. There are no limitations on what words can be written (I know this trope often uses “they can’t write names/addresses/identifying info” as a source of tension, but let’s be real, there are already So Many identity shenanigans here). Most international soulmate pairs don’t seek each other out until they are about 16.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian's life could never be called normal, even before he arrived in Gotham.

When Damien Al Ghul was young, perhaps 3 or 4 years old, the colorful splotches that often appeared and disappeared across his skin changed. Instead of shapeless blobs, new splotches would appear as small drawings: a childish sun here, a cartoon flower there, all dotted up and down his forearms and hands. He showed them to his trainer, of course, and she tutted sadly and muttered about “soulmates”, but refused to explain further, redirecting him to his katas.

A few days later, however, Damian was called into an audience with his grandfather. Ra’s Al Ghul looked at Damian's arms for a moment and then shook his head.

“Somewhere in the world,” Ra’s sneered, “someone drew on their arms, and their drawings appeared on  _ your _ arms. Civilians call this the soulmate phenomenon, and claim that the person connected to them is their “other half”. In reality, soulmates are a weakness, a leverage point to be used against a civilian. Al Ghuls, of course, have no need for another person to “complete” us and have  _ no _ use for the weakness that a soulmate creates. You are to ignore the drawings and focus on your training. If writing appears on your skin, inform your mother, and she will… deal with the situation.”

Damian nodded his understanding, and his grandfather dismissed him without another word.

Soulmates were not mentioned around Damian for another year until he awoke one morning and discovered blocky Latin letters printed down the inside of his arm. Damian dutifully informed one of the staff members that he would like to speak with his mother at her earliest convenience and then proceeded to his usual training.

When he met with his mother that evening, Damian showed her the childish scrawl. She looked at him for a long moment and then knelt down next to him. 

Talia explained that, even though Ra’s had said that soulmates were a weakness, they were really more like a sword. They could harm you, if you were not paying attention, but so long as you knew how to handle them they made an excellent tool. She would set aside some time each night where Damian would be allowed to write to his soulmate, with supervision. She would also make sure that French was added to Damian’s curriculum, as that was clearly the language his soulmate spoke. In the meantime, Damian was to begin wearing long sleeves at all times, to prevent people from reading anything his soulmate wrote.

And so for the next few years, Damian wrote to his soulmate in short hour-long snatches in the evenings, supervised by the watchful eye of his mother or one of her trusted lieutenants. His mother taught him to keep the League’s secrets, to substitute “homeschool” for “training”, and to tone down his knowledge to match his civilian peers.

He learned that his soulmate’s name was Marinette and that she loved to draw. He practiced his French and his Mandarin with her and gave her advice on how to deal with a bully at school. He talked to her about his sword-fighting skills (fencing), and his covert-ops training (piano lessons). Eventually, when he was trusted enough to write without supervision, he told her about his worries of failing his parents’ legacies.

As the years passed, the League grew darker and Damian trusted fewer and fewer people, closing himself off from everyone but his soulmate. He kept a watchful eye on his mother’s new half-mad protege and tracked the whispers of a coup in the League. He sought comfort in the bright drawings that his soulmate scattered across his arms, rubbing them over and over in the dark of night when no one could see him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ra’s sees soulmates as someone to hold you back, someone that can be used against you if you let them in at all. Talia, on the other hand, has carefully created this kid out of the Al Ghul lineage and the Batman lineage and sees no reason why someone with such an extraordinary pedigree would not be matched up with an equally excellent soulmate. Basically, Talia thinks that the League could get two assets for the price of one if she plays this right.


	2. in the light of the day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette's life, before secrets and superheroes start getting in the way.

Marinette had known what soulmates were for as long as she could remember. Her Maman and Papa were soulmates, of course, and delighted in writing notes on one another’s skin at every opportunity. They told Marinette the story of how they met, how Maman had flown all the way across the continent to meet Papa, and how they attended university together. Marinette hoped that one day she’d have a story just as sugar-sweet as her parents.

As soon as she could hold a marker properly, Marinette began doodling on her arms. Although her drawings started out as indistinct blobs, they quickly resolved into simple, cartoonish drawings. But although she checked as much as she could, she never saw any sign that her soulmate responded. 

Marinette did not give up easily. She kept drawing whenever she got the chance, reaching out to a soulmate who never reached back. When she started school, she practiced her writing over and over, until she was ready, and then printed a simple “Hello” down the inside of her arm. She checked it throughout the day and went to bed disappointed when her soulmate never answered.

The next morning, however, a smaller hello was printed below the one she had written. The handwriting was a little neater than hers, and it curved oddly, but it was the first response that she had ever seen from her soulmate. Marinette jumped out of bed and raced downstairs to show her Maman and Papa, who showered her in hugs and congratulations. With their help, she planned out an introduction that she could write to her soulmate, and scrawled it across her arms. 

_ **My name is Marinette. I live in France, and my favorite color is pink.** _

Her soulmate did not reply to her during the day, but she woke the next morning to a reply in the same curved handwriting. Instead of an introduction, though, her soulmate had simply declared that their favorite color was green. While Marinette was disappointed that her soulmate wouldn’t tell her their name, she was still happy that they were responding at all.

Over the next few years, Marinette quickly fell into an easy pattern of communication with her soulmate. She would write along her arms during the day, and her soulmate’s response would be there waiting for her when she awoke the next morning. She wrote to him about her parent’s bakery, and about all the kids in her class, even the mean ones like Chloe. She doodled lots of drawings to cheer him up when he seemed lonely, and she told him all about her plans to be a fashion designer.

And even though he never gave her his name, Marinette learned a lot about her soulmate. He liked to fence, and he felt that his piano lessons were useless. She had figured out that he was probably rich and homeschooled (Maman said that explained why his family didn’t want him giving out his name), and that he didn’t know anyone else his age. She knew that he trusted her with things he had never told his family, and made sure to always cheer him up when he seemed down. They wrote back and forth every day, and Marinette was closer to him than she was to even her friends at school.

A few months after Marinette turned 10, though, her soulmate suddenly stopped writing to her. The first night, she brushed it off assuming he was just busy, but then a second and a third night passed with no communication. By the fourth night, Marinette was positively frantic, covering her arms and even legs in messages of concern. In the end, it was almost a full week of worry before her soulmate responded with a single word.

“Sorry”

The night after that, he responded with more detail, explaining that there had been a kidnapping attempt and that he was ok, but that he had to move away for a bit and he wasn’t used to the rules where he was staying. Over the next few days, Marinette got a few more details from him (apparently his mother “wasn’t around anymore”, and his “father’s wards” were nosy), but their messages resumed their usual pattern, and her worries faded.

A month or so later, though, their communication changed again. Marinette had scribbled out a note to her soulmate during lunch, and moments later watched in shock as a response traced its way down her arm, _ in the middle of the day. _ In the moment or two that it took for the shock to wear off, Marinette realized that none of the words were out of the ordinary, only the timing. She wrote back and again received an immediate response, and when she asked about the change she got a half-hearted response about “the butler saying it was impolite to make you wait”.

Whatever actually prompted the change, though, Marinette was delighted. For the next three years, she wrote to her soulmate throughout the day and received responses within hours. The two of them could hold much more detailed conversations now, and though her soulmate was still cagey about things like his name or his place of residence, she grew to know him even better. She comforted him when his father declared him “unruly”, and told him details of her blossoming fashion ideas. She laughed at the stories of his father’s wards, and took his advice when Chloe’s bullying got too bad. She even gave him some tips on how to bond with the older boys in his house, and internally cheered when he began calling them brothers. 

When her soulmate wrote to her that his father had allowed him to begin learning the family business, she sent him days worth of happy drawings and congratulations. And when, at age 14, her soulmate announced that his father was going to let him attend public school for the first time, a week before the semester started, she was happy for him. She cherished their conversations, and couldn’t wait to hear about the friends he was sure to make at school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let’s play a fun game in 6 easy steps  
Step 1: Be Marinette, with a soulmate that is cagey about his name  
Step 2: Know that your soulmate “fences” and “plays piano” and “speaks Mandarin”, figure out that he is probably rich because of how he talks about his “tutors”, know about his worries living up to strict expectations  
Step 3: Learn that he is starting at a new school this week, after being “homeschooled” all his life  
Step 4: Meet Adrien Agreste  
Step 5: ?????  
Step 6: REGRET  
(She’ll figure it out fairly quickly, but STILL)


	3. when you’re rising to shine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian experiences a lot of changes between the ages of 10 and 15; he learns how to be a person and works hard to make his Father proud. Through it all, he has his soulmate to turn to, but even though he tells her almost everything, he keeps his family’s greatest secret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A forewarning: I’ve never actually read a Batman comic, I just enjoy reading the fanfics. As such, I have no real clue how a) Damian actually died b) how he got resurrected, or c) how the Lazarus Pits actually work ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Oh well, my universe now
> 
> Also, I made So Many Memes while writing this chapter, because I’m easily entertained. 
> 
> Edit: I intended to write a quick little summary of Damian joining the BatFam + how the soulmate shenanigans interact with it, but because I don’t really know any of the potential canon ways that Damian could join it ended up being … a lot longer than I was expecting. I had 7 quick plot beats that I wanted to hit, and I thought it was going to be a short 500-1000 words, and here I am 5000+ words later. (Not including all the alternate POV nonsense that I wrote to figure out how the other characters would react) Hence why it took so much longer than I expected, and why there is no corresponding Marinette chapter (yet). Sorry to anyone who is solely here for the soulmate shenanigans, I have no excuse for the nonsense in my brain.

The day before Damian’s 10th birthday, his entire world fell down around him. It started early in the morning when he went to spar with his sword-fighting trainer. Instead of the usual spar, rough, but not life-threatening, the trainer came at Damian with the full fury of a trained warrior. Damian held his own for a significant amount of time, but eventually, a lucky swipe disarmed him. His trainer swooped down and stabbed him straight through the heart, and Damian passed out immediately.

Damian came back to consciousness underwater, with fluid filling his lungs. He coughed once, twice, and then flailed his way to the surface. When he broke the surface, he immediately recognized it as the Lazurus Pit, with Talia hovering by the side. He pulled himself out and took the towel and clothes that Talia handed him. As he dried and dressed, Talia filled him in on the attempted coup that was occurring.

“So I am sending you to live with your father, while I deal with this insubordination,” she instructed. “You may as well take your place as his heir while you are there, so my new protege will follow you to Gotham as soon as I can spare him.”

Damian swallowed back his protests and nodded. A short while later, his bags were packed and he was on a flight bound for America. Talia had filled him in on the identity of his father (Both the Bruce Wayne and Batman identities), and he had a whole dossier on the Wayne family. But before he did anything else, he wanted to write to Marinette, to let her be a bright spot of sunshine in the turmoil of his life. He pulled out a marker from his bag and tried to respond to her latest message (a fairly innocuous story about her parent’s bakery), but the ink simply rolled off the surface of his arm, like water off a duck’s back. 

Though he tried a few more times, and with various pens that he borrowed from other passengers and flight attendants, Damian couldn’t get anything to sink into his skin. He resigned himself to isolation and dug into the dossier to ignore the strange catch that he felt in his throat. Perhaps the effect would wear off in a day or two.

By the time the plane landed, Damian was in a foul mood but was fully informed about Bruce Wayne and his … wards. He knew how to handle Dick Grayson (Nightwing), and plotted out potential strategies to remove the current Robin, Tim Drake. He’d even figured out the connection between his mother’s protege and the dead Robin, Jason Todd. Damian was the most concerned about the Batgirls, particularly Oracle, but they appeared to be out of Gotham at the moment, and it would not be hard to establish himself before they returned.

Since the sun had already set by the time he left the airport, Damian planned to grab a room somewhere that would not ask questions, but his plans quickly changed when he spotted the Batmobile, parked in an alley while the bats patrolled. With his decade of training, it was the work of moments to break into the car and then reset the alarms. Now he only had to wait for Batman’s return. Unfortunately, it had been a very long day, and Damian was, no matter how well trained, just a 10-year-old boy. With nothing to do but wait, he could not keep from drifting off to sleep.

Though most children sleep heavily, children raised by assassins are far more aware of their surroundings. When a dark shadow thudded down onto the hood of the Batmobile, Damian was awake in an instant. Damian stared at the shadow for a long moment, seeing his Father in person for the first time. Then he slowly opened the door of the Batmobile and greeted the Dark Knight of Gotham.

“Hello Father,” he said solemnly. When Batman failed to reply, he took a deep breath and carried on. “Mother sent me to live with you while she deals with an irritating coup. It has been an awfully long day, do plan to patrol for much longer?” When Batman simply continued to stare at him, he shut the Batmobile door once more and slumped against the seat as if tired.

Batman spoke a few words into his earpiece, words Damian could not hear from inside the Batmobile. Moments later, after clearly receiving some sort of answer, he swung down off the hood of the Batmobile and opened the driverside door. Damian feigned sleepiness, blinking his eyes slowly, but fingering the knives in his pocket just in case. Batman made no moves towards Damian, though, he simply started the Batmobile up and drove off.

Damian feigned sleep throughout the ride, carefully blinking drowsiness into his eyes when the Batmobile pulled into the Batcave. Nightwing and Robin were already there, alert and waiting. Damian rubbed at his eyes, careful to act like a normal child waking up. He grabbed his duffle bag and stepped out of the Batmobile, heading towards the vigilantes. 

“Dick, Tim” he greeted, nodding at Nightwing and Robin, letting a fake yawn slip through before turning back to Batman, who had come up behind him. 

Damian tried to hide a flinch (the last time he was this close to an adult with combat skills, he was literally murdered) but did not completely succeed. Batman crouched down until he was at eye level with Damian.

“If you know their names,” he said, voice clearly trying to be gentle, but laced with steel, “then I’m sure you know mine as well.”

Damian nodded. “Bruce Wayne.”

“And your mother?”

“Talia Al Ghul”

This time Batman was the one to flinch, in time with a quick gasp from Robin. Batman recovered quickly and tilted his head at Nightwing. The blue-caped hero stepped away, and then returned in moments with a kit that was clearly used to draw blood. Before Batman could say anything, Damian held out his right arm, exposing an easy-to-hit vein. Batman took a deep, stuttering breath, and then let it out as a sigh.

“I’m going to run a DNA test tonight,” he explained, as he quickly drew a vial of blood from Damian’s arm. “Dick will find you a room to sleep in, and we can figure out what’s going on tomorrow.” 

Damian shook his arm as the needle was removed, and accepted the offered bandaid. Nightwing tugged off his cowl and headed for a set of stairs deeper in the cave, and Damian followed without a word. At the top of the steps, a hidden doorway swung open into a manor hallway, and from there it was only a few twists and turns before Dick opened the door of a bedroom. Damian walked in and closed the door, flopping onto the bed without so much as a word of thanks.

With the watchful eyes of the bats no longer looming, Damian let out a deep sigh. He curled around himself as though sleeping, shielding his arms from any potential cameras, before rolling his sleeve up and reading over the notes his soulmate had left him. The bakery story from earlier in the day was still there, along with a few new drawings that he traced reverently. He certainly wasn’t safe enough to try to write to her; there was no telling how his Father felt about soulmates. He fell asleep in moments, curled around himself and clutching the knife in his pocket.

The next morning, Damian woke to the first dregs of sunlight streaming in through the window. Still wary of observation, he ran through a simplified workout routine before Bruce’s younger ward came to bring him down to breakfast. As they entered the kitchen, Damian could hear voices talking, but when he entered the conversation stopped.

Dick and Bruce, in their civilian attire, turned away from a fourth man (likely the butler, Alfred), to look at Damian. Their gaze was far less suspicious than the night before, and although Bruce was clearly still wary, Dick looked far more welcoming. The butler fussed around Tim, handing-off a cup of coffee, and encouraged Damian to take a seat at the kitchen table and eat.

Once seated, Damian prepared himself for an onslaught of questions, ready to obfusticate or outright deny any knowledge of the League’s plans. And though his Father did ask questions all throughout breakfast, none of them seemed particularly strategic. Instead, they were more personal questions, like what his name was, and when he was born, and what he enjoyed doing.

As breakfast ended, though, Damian set his confusion aside. His Father has indicated that he would be out all day “sorting out Damian’s paperwork”, and told Damian he had the run of the Manor, and to “ask Alfred if you need anything.” Dick was headed out to work, and Tim, of course, had school. Damian figured that he would have plenty of time to try writing to his soulmate, without being observed.

Unfortunately, having the run of the Manor did not seem to mean that he would be left alone. Alfred seemed to have a never-ending list of things to do, all of which were conveniently in the same room as Damian. And once Tim came back from school, he hovered over Damian as well. Damian wasn’t even left alone when the Bats went patrolling, as only two went out each night.

It took almost a week before Damian managed to catch a moment alone, a week of watching his soulmate’s increasingly frantic messages trace their way up and down his arm. He finally tucked himself away in a corner of the garden one evening to “draw”, and he managed to write a quick “Sorry” to Marinette before he tugged his sleeve back down, wary of being caught. Then he sat there doodling for another two hours, uninterrupted.

Over the next few days, Damian tested the boundaries and figured out that he could “draw” undisturbed for a few hours any afternoon, so long as Alfred could see him from the Manor. When he faced away from the windows, this provided the perfect cover for him to write to his soulmate, and over the course of the next few days, he was able to reassure Marinette that he was fine. 

By the end of the month, Damian had fallen into a holding pattern. He had no idea how long he was going to be stuck in Gotham, and there was no point carving out space for himself if he would be leaving in the next few months. Instead, he kept mostly to himself, practicing his languages with the books he found in the Manor library and trying to keep his combat skills sharp without tipping too much of his hand. He avoided his Father’s wards whenever possible, only conversing with them when breakfasts and dinners necessitated it.

It was at one such breakfast that Damian’s life was turned on its head once more. As he sat down at the table, the chair caught his sleeve and pulled in up, exposing his arm. Unfortunately, Marinette was writing something at that exact moment, and the dark lettering appearing on his arm was hard to miss. Across the table, Tim inhaled sharply, and Damian quickly tugged his sleeve back down, trying to ignore the sudden tension. His Father opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Alfred walked up behind Damian and handed him a marker.

“It is awfully impolite to leave one’s soulmate waiting, Master Damian; I’m sure you can spare a moment to reply before you begin eating.”

Damian eyed the marker for a long moment, then slowly rolled up his sleeve. He quickly read Marinette’s message, and jotted down a reply, setting down the marker but not rolling his sleeve back up. When Marinette wrote back a moment later, Damian glanced at his Father, who was still watching him, and then picked up the marker and wrote a second reply. 

Damian spent the whole breakfast waiting for a lecture, either on how soulmates were a weakness, or on how they required proper cultivation, but neither topic seemed forthcoming. Dick made one or two comments about “pinging” his soulmate, and then the conversation moved on, returning to the same topics as any other morning. 

And, that, it seemed, was the end of that conversation. No one brought up Damian’s soulmate again, even when he started leaving his sleeves rolled up and writing to her throughout the day. Marinette, at least, seemed delighted that Damian was writing more, and the two held more conversations than ever. It was nice to have someone to talk to; Marinette gave him lots of advice on how to talk to the Waynes and helped ease some of the loneliness of living in an unfamiliar place.

And so life continued, until the day that Damian realized he had been in Gotham for more than three months. In all that time, Talia had never contacted him, and so it was likely that he was stuck in Gotham for the foreseeable future. It was clearly up to him to make a place for himself here, and the best way to do that was to prove himself to Batman.

As luck would have it, it was Robin’s turn to stay home from patrol that night. When Tim got sidetracked into the details of the latest case, Damian snuck off down to the Batcave. Although the current Robin suit was too large for him, there was one far in the back of the armory that fit, so he quickly donned it. He grabbed a pair of katanas and a motorscooter and headed out to prove himself.

Damian made it into the city without a problem and headed for the area that looked the shadiest. He’d heard Dick refer to it as “Crime Alley”, and that seemed as good a place as any to see how his skills lent themselves to vigilantism. As he turned into the street, however, a speaker on the bike crackled to life, and a woman’s voice sounded out.

“Robin, I don’t know what lead you are following, but be careful if you’re headed down by 43rd, there’s a drug runner’s warehouse that B and Nightwing are going to bust later tonight. B’s got a bead on the kingpin, and is tracking him north. And put your comm in, dumbass, you know the rules.”

Damian skidded the scooter to a stop, and shut it off in a hurry. He didn’t know who that woman was, but he wasn’t going to stick around and let her keep him from showing Batman that he deserved to be Robin. He hid the scooter in a nook between buildings and ran off towards 43rd. Dispatching drug runners sounded like the perfect way to prove himself.

When he arrived at the warehouse, he scaled the fire escape and dropped in through an upper floor window. Damian made his way out towards the center of the warehouse, quickly dispatching the two goons he encountered, but before he could track down where the drugs were being kept, a dark shadow fell over him. Damian whirled around, blades ready, but relaxed his guard when he recognized Batman. This proved to be a poor choice, though, because it gave Nightwing the opening he needed to spring down from the rafters, and with a quick blow to the back of his neck, Damian lost consciousness.

Damian woke up lying down on an unfamiliar surface. When he opened his eyes, he saw the stalactites of the Batcave for mere moments before his Father loomed over him, face tight with anger. Damian winced backward, but there was nowhere to go.

“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?!?” his Father roared.

Damian flinched, hard. It was fine, he thought, because Father clearly didn’t notice, caught up in his rage. Before he could say anything else though, Nightwing pulled his Father back, whispering in his ear. Father took a deep breath and stepped away; Nightwing walked back to Damian and helped him sit up.

“So it seems like you left a few skills out when you told us what the League taught you, huh.”

Internally, Damian breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, this was why his Father was angry; keeping secrets from Ra’s was one of the worst infractions in the League. It made sense that his Father felt similarly. If Damian was going to join his Father’s crusade, he could no longer hide his skills.

So Damian nodded slowly and then began a full debriefing of the things that he had learned from the League. He grew more confident as his list went on; he was skilled in his craft and would be a much better partner than these random orphans that his Father had picked up. Throughout his recitation, Nightwing stared at him, expression unreadable under his cowl. His Father’s response was equally obscured; the shadows of the cave cloaked any emotion.

When Damian finished describing all his skills, he swung himself off the medical cot and stood ready to face whatever punishment his Father deemed appropriate. Nightwing looked over at his Father, and some silent communication passed between the two vigilantes. Tension hung in the air for a long moment, and then his Father stepped forward, out of the shadow.

“It is late, and you ought to be in bed. Go to your room for tonight, and tomorrow we will discuss what to do.”

Damian knew better than to argue. He stopped by the armory to replace the Robin outfit, and then quickly left the Batcave, trying to ignore the whispered argument that he could hear behind him. In his bedroom, he wrote out a quick note to Marinette and told her he was likely to be busy for the next few days, so she would not worry if he did not respond to her. Then he laid down in bed and tried to sleep, dozing fitfully the whole night.

The next morning, breakfast was quiet and tense. No one spoke, though his Father’s wards communicated back and forth via glance. Once everyone finished and Dick and Tim had left, Damians Father stood up slowly and instructed Damian to follow him as he headed down to the Batcave.

Down in the Batcave, Damian watched as his Father stalked over to a large computer and then returned, donning his cowl. In his hands were two folders and a domino mask, which he handed over to Damian. Damian slipped the mask on, and started opening the first folder, but was stopped when his Father’s voice rang out.

“Murder,” his Father said, in the deep gravelly tones of Batman, “is never acceptable. When you kill a man you not only take away what they were, but all they will ever be. You take them away from their family, from their friends, and you give them no chance to change.”

Damian nodded slowly, since his Father was clearly expecting a response.

“In those files is everything about the two men that you killed last night. Since you took away everything they could be, you are going to learn everything you can about who they were, and you are going to remember that they were people, just as important as you are.”

Damian nodded again. He didn’t really understand the point of the punishment, but it was far more tolerable than anything Ra’s had ever devised. Damian’s Father looked at him for a long moment and then walked away, returning to the Batcomputer. Damian sat down in a corner of the Batcave, and opened the first file.

For the rest of the day, Damian read and reread the files, trying to figure out what his Father wanted. By the time the vigilantes left for their nightly patrol, Damian thought he had it figured out. The two men he had killed were both the major source of income for their families, and now that they were dead the families would have a hard time staying afloat. When he showed his Father (who had stayed behind in the cave while Nightwing and Robin patrolled), Batman gave him a long look and then slowly nodded.

“Tomorrow, we will start working on your self-control in combat. When you can take out combatants consistently without lethal force, we will revisit the possibility of you joining patrols. Until then, do not come down to the cave without Nightwing, Robin, or myself.”

For the next few months, Damian spent his evenings training in the Batcave. Sometimes his Father would spar with him, showing him non-lethal strikes and reorienting his immediate reflexes. Other times, Nightwing would show him acrobatics that could be used to evade an opponent almost indefinitely, or Robin would show him how to spot an attacker’s weakest points, disabling them without harm. Even Black Bat and Batgirl took the time to give him some tips when they stopped in Gotham in between off-world missions.

The increased attention was not limited to the evenings, either. Damian’s Father took a greater interest in what Damian did during the day and acquired homeschooling materials to help Damian catch up to his peers (Although Damian was advanced in subjects such as politics and anatomy, he was behind in others like literature and math). Dick and Tim started trying to spend more time with Damian, who, after taking a few suggestions from his soulmate, found their presence almost tolerable. As time passed, Damian found himself becoming a part of the family, instead of just a temporary resident of the Manor.

When Batman finally cleared Damian to join in patrols, about nine months after Damian had arrived in Gotham, Damian and Tim worked together to design his costume. (Dick was unanimously banned from helping due to his non-existent fashion sense) Tim decided to redesign his costume too, becoming Red Robin and handing the Robin title off to Damian. Damian kept most of the traditional Robin look, but made sure that his arms and legs were fully covered; Marinette liked to doodle and it wouldn’t do for soulmate marks to give away his identity. Damian also made sure that his gear included a katana - even in non-lethal combat, it was his best weapon.

It did not take long for Gotham to adapt to her new superhero. Robin toys started sporting little katanas, and the residents grew used to seeing the new boy wonder arching through the sky behind Nightwing (It was quickly determined that Robin patrolling with Batman would devolve into lectures every time.)

And Damian had never felt as free as he did when soaring through the night sky. With Marinette’s encouragement, he spent more time with Dick and Tim, and grew to see them as brothers, instead of competition. He began to see himself as a Wayne, not an Al Ghul, as a bat instead of an assassin.

But just as Damian had finally fallen into a comfortable pattern, his life changed yet again. He was swinging back through Crime Alley, heading for the Manor, when an unusual shadow caught his eye. He paused, just long enough for him to identify the shadow as his mother’s protege, Jason Todd. In moments, the shadow had vanished from sight, and Damian continued back to the manor, conflicted. On the one hand, there was no telling if Todd remembered that he had once been Robin; he had likely been sent by Talia to retrieve Damian, and Damian had no intention of leaving Gotham. On the other hand, Damian had seen the memorial in the Batcave and had heard some of Bruce’s stories about Jason; his Father would certainly want to know that Todd was alive.

So Damian fell back on the thing he always did when he didn’t know how to handle people; he wrote to Marinette. He obfuscated some of the details, presenting Todd as his Father’s estranged ward rather than … an undead assassin vigilante. Marinette, with her excellent people skills, came back with an answer almost immediately. She suggested that Damian should talk to Todd first, and see how he felt about being reunited with his Father.

With that advice, Damian set out the next night, prepared. As Robin, he volunteered to patrol Crime Alley, and he muted his comm so no one could hear anything that he might say. He found a perch, on top of one of Gotham’s myriad gargoyles, where he was hidden from the street. And there he waited, alert and ready. 

An hour in, Robin spotted his mother’s protege, sliding through the shadows. Robin waited for just the right moment, and then lept, falling out of the sky onto Todd. He landed on Todd’s shoulders and, before Todd had a chance to react, disarmed him in moments. Todd recovered quickly and threw Robin off, but Robin flipped over in midair, landing lightly on his feet. 

Robin took a deep breath, and, in his best Demon Prince voice, mimicked his mother’s favorite command: “Stand down.”

Todd faltered, and looked at Robin for a long moment before he spoke. “Damian?”

Robin nodded, imperiously. Todd took off his helmet, and silence hung in the air. Then Todd grimaced, his voice full of weary resignation.

“I see Bruce wasted no time in tossing the Replacement aside for his  ** _real_ ** son. Ha. Talia sent me to keep an eye on you, but it looks like you’re doing just fine restoring your  _ birthright _ on your own. Well fine, that frees me up to get the justice  _ I _ deserve. Go home, demon spawn, I’m sure B is worried about his  _ actual _ son, and I don’t need him snooping up in  _ my _ business.” 

Todd turned and headed away, and Robin had to make a split-second decision. With the amount of vitriol in Todd’s voice, it was pretty clear that he remembered his time as Robin, and that there were more than a few issues left unresolved. From the files Taila had given him, Robin could make a pretty good guess as to what justice Todd was looking for, and he was pretty sure that Batman would not approve.

And so Robin didn’t turn away, didn’t head back to his patrol route or to the Manor. Instead, he followed Todd, making no effort to conceal himself. When Todd snarled at him, Robin simply raised his eyebrows and kept following. Todd tried to rebuff him a couple more times, but Robin persisted, following Todd without saying anything. Eventually, Todd gave up on dissuading Robin and simply ignored him, continuing around Crime Alley. Unfortunately, Robin eventually had to head back to the Manor so Batman did not get suspicious, but he managed to tag Todd with a tracker or two before he left.

For the next few weeks, Damian got very little patrolling done. Every night that he was out, he tracked down Todd and followed him around Crime Alley. Todd talked to the residents of the Alley each night, the homeless and the street kids and the working women. (Many of them froze up, initially, when they spotted Robin, but when Todd waved off their concerns they relaxed again) After the first few nights, he also started talking at Robin, relaying stories about his childhood in the Alley, or telling him about the residents. Despite Damian’s silence, or perhaps because of it, Todd became more talkative as time went on. And eventually, he told Damian a story of his time as Robin, longing clear in his voice.

For Damian, that story was clear proof that Todd wanted to be reunited with Damian’s Father. So the next night, as he followed Todd around he unmuted his comm and turned the reception way up so that any sounds in his nearby environment would get picked up. When Todd started on his next anecdote, (some story about stealing Batman’s tires, how absurd) a sharp gasp sounded over the comm. 

Moments later, a shadow fell over them as they walked down Crime Alley. Todd paused, and looked up, just in time for Nightwing to tumble out of the sky. Todd tensed as if to flee, but before he could move, Nightwing spoke.

“Little Wing?”

And with those two words, all the tension drained out of Todd’s stance. Robin took a step back, rolling his eyes as Nightwing and Todd reunited. They were going to be insufferably emotional for the foreseeable future, so Robin unleashed his grappling hook and swung back to the Batcave. Luckily, both Batman and Red Robin were also out patrolling (though that may have been abandoned in favor of heading to Crime Alley), so Damian was able to slip back into the Manor without being accosted. He headed for his bedroom, pleased with his success. When Bruce ducked his head into the room an hour or so later, Damian feigned sleep, but the whispered, heartfelt “Thanks” made his heart glow with pride.

Over the next few years, Jason slid almost seamlessly into life at the Manor. There were problems, of course; the aftereffects of the Lazurus Pit had made Jason far more aggressive than before his death, and Batman did not always approve of his more violent tactics. (Damian and Jason often commiserated after Bruce had chewed one or the other of them out for “inappropriate combat”) And, especially in the beginning, there were piles of unspoken worries about not being wanted, from every one of the Waynes. But tensions eased, and everyone found a comfortable routine soon enough.

With five members of the Batfamily rotating through patrol, Damian had a lot more downtime. He spent more time on his art and even found himself doodling to Marinette on his arms. He raced through his homeschooling lessons, and in two years he had caught up to his peers. He trained with the Teen Titans for a while (his Father insisted that “proper socialization” was important), and exchanged stories about his friends with Marinette. 

But as Damian became a teenager, his Father started pushing him to have a life outside of his superheroics. His Father insisted that he needed civilian friends and that no, his soulmate did not count. And so, the summer before his 13th birthday, Damian’s Father signed set Damian up to attend Gotham Academy the upcoming fall. With only a week’s warning before school started, he spent the night fuming, and whining to his soulmate about starting school. (She seemed to think he was excited for school, though, and was excited for him. He was loath to dissuade her from that thought because she had been feeling down lately.) 

Once he started school, though, it wasn’t too bad; the teachers were interesting and the material was engaging. His classmates were plebeians, of course, but no one said he had to associate with them. Instead, he spent most of his time in the art room drawing; the art teacher let him draw whatever he liked for as long as he wanted, as long as he wasn’t skipping class.

Throughout the first week of school, Damian was too overwhelmed by all the newness to write to Marinette too much. He also didn’t notice that her messages had gotten less frequent, or that they were stilted like she was holding back something. On Saturday, though, he made sure to check his arms the instant he woke up and was taken aback when he read the words scrawled down his arm.

** _Would you tell me your name? There’s a new boy in my class, and you said you were starting school this week, and, well, I just want to make sure._ **

Damian’s breath caught in his throat. They had been writing to each other for so long that Damian had forgotten that Marinette did not know his name, or where he lived. For a moment, he was caught up in the idea that his soulmate could be at Gotham Academy, that he could meet her in person. But then reality reasserted itself; Marinette lived in Paris, not Gotham, so there was no way he could be in her class. 

But even though he did not want Marinette thinking some random boy was her soulmate, he wasn’t sure if he should tell her his name. The Wanye’s were a high-profile family, even internationally, and he didn’t want Marinette to treat him differently once she knew. And more than that, even being tangentially connected to the Waynes was dangerous - Gotham’s villains loved to target his family, and being overseas was not necessarily a guarantee of safety, as Jason’s death proved.

With some thought, Damian came to a compromise. He told Marinette his first name; it was uncommon, so it was unlikely that Marinette’s new classmate shared it, but common enough that the first thought wouldn’t be a billionaire's son from across the ocean. To his relief, Marinette quickly wrote back, reassuring him that she thought it was a coincidence, but that it would be silly not to check. 

Damian and Marinette kept writing back and forth for hours, catching each other up on their first week of school. As they went down the list of interesting things that had happened, Marinette eventually mentioned that, during the first day of school, Paris was attacked by a supervillain named Hawkmoth. When Damian expressed concern for her safety, she informed him that Paris had also gained two heroes that had thwarted Hawkmoth: a red-clad heroine named Ladybug, and a black-clad hero named Chat Noir. And though Marinette quickly moved the conversation on to other topics, Damian could tell that she was leaving something out.

That night, before patrol, Damian did some research on the Batcomputer. He found one website dedicated to Paris’ new hero: the Ladyblog. He read everything he could about Ladybug and Chat Noir, and about Hawkmoth. For now, it looked like Marinette was right, that Ladybug and Chat were keeping Paris safe. Nonetheless, Damian set up alerts on his phone, so that he would always know when the superheroes were active. Sure, there had only been one attack so far, but in Damian’s experience, villains never stopped at one attack. 

Over the next few months, Damian’s phone pinged, again and again, alerting him to attack after attack. But he couldn’t focus too much attention to it; Gotham’s rogues had been plotting again, and it was all hands on deck trying to unravel whatever they had planned before they wreaked havoc on the city. Damian barely had enough time to check in with Marinette after each attack, to make sure she was safe. And luckily, she always was, no matter how many times an akuma targeted her class. 

Whenever he had free time, Damian wrote Marinette tips that the citizens of Gotham used to deal with the frequent villain attacks. Although some of them were probably less helpful than others, given the ever-changing nature of Paris’ villains, he still felt better with the idea that Marinette had at least some protection, even if it was just knowledge. 

By the time that Gotham’s rogues had been dealt with, the Parisian superheroes were firmly established. The Justice League reached out to Paris, once, to provide help, but they were rebuffed by both the French government and Paris’ mayor. So Damian had to watch, unable to help, as months of akuma attacks turned into one year, and then another. And akuma attacks were not the only danger he worried about in those two years; Marinette seemed to be more and more stressed as time went on - more and more responsibilities fell on her shoulders, and her classmates began alienating her.

And so Damian made a promise to himself, as the second anniversary of Hawkmoth’s appearance drew near. If Ladybug and her widening circle of heroes hadn’t defeated Hawkmoth before the school year started up, he would do whatever it took to make sure that Marinette was safe, even if that meant that he had to go to Paris himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, this entire chapter: Hey can we get back to soulmates now? Can I write the stuff that is like, the entire premise of this story?  
My brain, high on the AU sauce: and then Batman ADOPTED his OWN CHild. and CULTURAL DIFFERENCES made everyone’s life HARDER
> 
> Fun fact: art is a SNITCH, Damian has so many issues, and you can, in fact, give yourself second-hand anxiety via writing! Yay! (NOT YAY)
> 
> There are a LOT of miscommunications going on in this chapter; if anyone is interested in an author’s commentary I would write it in a heartbeat because there are so many things that I had to leave out because of the 3rd person limited POV.


	4. when you’re hittin’ the hay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between the ages of 13 and 14, Marinette takes on great responsibilities. It's too bad she can't tell her soulmate about them, and the stress she feels is quickly piling up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was really disappointed by some of the worldbuilding choices that Astruc made, so I’ve decided it’s My AU Now, and I Do What I Want. As such, I’ve tweaked some aspects of the miraculous *cough* adults aren’t inherently better superheroes *cough* and totally rewritten others (looking at you, Mayura)
> 
> Also, those paying close attention to the timeline might have noticed that Damian’s timeline didn’t line up right with Marinette’s. I made a mistake in the timeline; I thought Mari was 14 and 15 in the series, (and would therefore turn 16 right before the 2-year mark of Hawkmoth’s apperance, hence me making Damian’s last chapter 10-16) As it turns out, she’s 13 and 14 (because the French schooling system is just… totally different from American grades), so I went back and adjusted Damian’s timeline accordingly.

The first day of 4eme was shaping up to be just as bad as Marinette had expected; Chloe had run roughshod over the class all morning, demanding seat rearrangements and special treatment. As if that wasn’t bad enough, lunch hour had been interrupted by news of a giant stone supervillain raging across Paris. Marinette was aware of superheroes and villains, of course, but they always seemed fairly distant, contained to the Americas and not raging across her own city.

She rifled through the piles on her desk, looking for a pen so that she could write to her soulmate about all of this nonsense when a small hexagonal box caught her eye. It looked like some sort of jewelry case, but Marinette didn’t remember ever seeing it before. She opened the box, and had just enough time to catch a glimpse of a pair of spotted earrings, before a bright glow lit up the room.

As the glow cleared, Marinette could see a small figure hovering in the air. She scrambled backward, dropping the box. It looked like a large bug, or a mouse, or something, and then, distressingly, it started  _ speaking _ . Marinette threw a few things at the bug-mouse, venting her confusion aloud before she was able to gather her wits (and a glass). It was the work of moments to trap the bug-mouse-thing under said glass, and with the situation somewhat under control, Marinette could calm down enough to at least understand what the bug-mouse was saying.

There were a few tense moments of back-and-forth where Marinette was on edge, tempted to get her Maman and Papa for backup, but the bug-mouse, a kwami named Tikki, quickly assuaged her fears. Tikki informed Marinette that she had been chosen to wield the Ladybug Miraculous, a pair of earrings that would lend her the powers of creation, and help her stop Stoneheart. Marinette was very skeptical, but she listened as Tikki gave her a rundown on the situation - Stoneheart was powered by an akuma, and Marinette would need to capture it to stop him. Tikki also gave Marinette a quick overview of her powers; Lucky Charm would gift her an item that could turn the tide of battle, and Miraculous Ladybug would help erase any mess that the battle had made. As she finished her explanation, Tikki handed Marinette the earrings, which Marinette carefully put on.

Marinette took a deep breath, and then used the activation phrase that Tikki had told her: Spots on! A bright light lit up her bedroom, and the oddest sensation surrounded Marinette, like a gust of wind and heat all around her. The light and wind vanished in seconds, though, and Marinette was left reeling. She caught a glimpse of herself, clad head to toe in form-fitting, polka-dotted spandex, and wheeled around to give Tikki a talking to. The kwami hadn’t mentioned anything about fashion atrocities! But Tikki was nowhere to be found; she seemed to have vanished into thin air.

On her computer, Marinette noticed as Stoneheart headed towards the Montparnasse Tower, wreaking destruction. If she was going to stop him, she needed to get a move on. Marinette shouted a few quick reassurances down to her parents and then grabbed the yoyo off her waist and swung out the balcony. Luckily, the suit seemed to come with some built in-muscle memory, although getting that muscle memory to work properly was clearly going to take some work. On her way to the Montparnasse Tower, she ran into another superhero who was also learning the ropes; he introduced himself as her partner, Chat Noir. 

In the time it took the two to get acquainted, Stoneheart had changed direction once again. This time he was headed for Marinette’s school. When a loud crash sounded out, Chat Noir raced after Stoneheart, using his staff to pole across the city. Marinette followed close behind, getting more used to her yo-yo as she went.

Between the two superheroes, Stoneheart was defeated fairly quickly, even though Chat Noir didn’t know enough about his power to use it effectively. Marinette watched the akuma fly off, and did a congratulatory fistbump with Chat Noir, then turned away leave. Before she could make it out of the school, though, she was stopped by the new girl, Alya, who started asking questions about Marinette’s name and powers. Marinette’s brain stalled out, and so she simply told Alya to call her Ladybug before swinging away.

The rest of the school day passed quickly, and Marinette had no spare time until that evening when she was washing dishes. Marinette was contemplating what she would tell her soulmate about the whole day when her Maman gasped from the living room. Marinette finished drying and wandered in to see what was up, just in time to see the camera pan across dozens of Stoneheart-like statues. Marinette darted up to her room and asked Tikki what was going on, disheartened to hear that this was all her fault.

Marinette had thought, of course, that she wasn’t cut out to be a hero, and she felt that this was proof. She had messed up on her very first day! She told Tikki as much and took off the earrings so that the kwami could find a better hero, but when she turned around to give them back, the kwami had vanished. With a sigh, Marinette put the earrings back into the box; she would deal with them tomorrow.

She flopped down on her bed, pulling out a marker to write a quick goodnight to her soulmate. She thought about telling him about Ladybug but eventually decided against it. She wasn’t going to _ be _ Ladybug anymore, after all, and the new hero would probably be good enough to stop the akumas for good. Instead, she jotted a short note about how she hoped his first day at school went well, and then she rolled over and fell asleep.

When she woke up the next morning, Marinette checked her arms first thing, as was her usual habit. Her soulmate had written back, telling her that today was actually going to be his first day of school; yesterday was mostly paperwork. She was excited for him for a moment or two, but then she caught sight of the small black box sitting on her desk, and drooped, reminded of yesterday’s failure. She went through her usual morning routine rather half-heartedly, until it was time to leave for school. She hesitated a moment, and then shoved the little black box into her purse before rushing off.

Out front of the school, the new girl Alya showed Marinette the new blog she had written about Ladybug. Marinette felt embarrassed; Alya was really the one that should be the hero, with how she stuck up for Ivan when Chloe tried to bully him. Marinette paused, and then ran through that thought again. Alya should be the hero! When Alya wasn’t looking, Marinette grabbed the little black box out of her purse and slipped it into Alya’s bag, sure she would find it soon enough.

With that taken care of, Marinette headed to her classroom and entered the door just in time to see some strange blond boy putting gum on her seat, as Chloe laughed. She huffed in irritation as he moved away and she fixed the gum. As she sat down, she got a good look at him and realized why he looked familiar; he was fashion model Adrien Agreste. She dismissed him as a stuck-up rich kid, just like Chloe, and as he sat down she overheard what he said to Nino, about it being his first day and him having no friends. Her brain slid sideways, remembering her soulmate’s words that morning, and Marinette laughed internally at the coincidence.

When roll call started, Marinette continued to be silently amused at the spoiled rich boy. From the way he jumped out of his chair, it was pretty clear that he’d never been to school before. She didn’t have long to laugh, though, as Stoneheart burst through the classroom door, snatching up Mylene and Chloe and then jumping out the window. Alya grabbed her phone and dashed out after him, and Marinette was left behind, holding Alya’s bag. She dashed after Alya, trying to catch up, but managed to reach Alya just as a car fell from the hands of a stone monster. Marinette watched helplessly as Chat Noir threw his staff, saving Alya from being squashed but trapping her under the car. In the same instant, a giant stone hand grabbed Chat, and without his staff, he had no way to free himself.

With no other option, Marinette ducked down behind a car and pulled the black box out of Alya’s bag. She popped the earrings in, and then, moments later, Ladybug was racing down the street, swinging her yo-yo to free Alya. She tossed Chat Noir his staff, and the two of them headed towards the Eiffel Tower. They got there just in time for Ladybug to save Chloe from falling through the air and then watched, bemused, as Stoneheart coughed up a swarm of akumas.

The akumas formed a face above the Tower, and Ladybug watched, bemused, as the newly revealed supervillain, Hawkmoth, tried to blame her and Chat Noir for the attacks. She quickly rebuffed his claims, though, and swept her yo-yo through the accumulated mass of akumas. 

With just a couple of swipes, she captured and purified the entire akuma swarm, and then she and Chat Noir turned her attention to Stoneheart. With their past experience, they were able to make short work of him, and Ladybug made sure to catch and purify the akuma this time. With the danger out of the way, she cast Miraculous Ladybug, and a magical swarm of ladybugs swept across Paris, fixing all the damage and restoring the stone men. Ladybug spared a few kind words to Mylene and Ivan and then swung back towards her school, detransforming as soon as it was safe.

Although the morning was interrupted by a supervillain, the principal of Marinette’s school decided that it would be safe enough to continue with the second half of the day, so after lunch, Marinette headed back to school. Still riding the confidence of her victory as Ladybug, she reclaimed her old seat from Chloe and ignored Adrien, miffed about the gum incident from the morning. She let her thoughts turn to her soulmate for a few moments, wondering how he was doing on his first day, before refocusing as Madame Bustier entered the classroom.

Even though they had already missed half a day of class, Madame Bustier did not immediately launch into the lesson. Instead, she decided to start with an ice breaker, where each student would introduce themselves and say a couple of things they liked to do. Marinette let her mind wander for most of the icebreaker; she’d shared a class with most of the other students for years, and knew all of them pretty well. 

When Ms. Bustier got to Alya and Adrien, however, Marinette made sure she was paying attention. Alya’s hobbies came as no surprise: journalism and videography. But when Adrien listed his hobbies as piano and fencing, Marinette couldn’t help but be a little shocked. Maybe it was because she had  _ just _ been thinking about her soulmate, but her mind was instantly reminded that those were some of her soulmate’s favorite activities as well.

Marinette spent the rest of the day watching Adrien closely, and finding more and more similarities. Although he’d never outright said it, Marinette was pretty sure her soulmate was wealthy, and, coincidentally, the Agrestes were one of the richest families in Paris. Adrien didn’t really know how to interact with the other people in the class, and Marinette’s soulmate had mentioned several times that he didn’t know how to deal with his peers. As the comparisons mounted, Marinette found her earlier animosity towards Adrien fading away, replaced by a cautious optimism. And so, at the end of the day, when he offered her his umbrella, only to have it close on her head, she laughed along with him, and stammered a bit as she waved off his apologies.

When she made it back home, she was drawn out of her soulmate musings by a rush of shoppers in the bakery. Maman and Papa swept her up into the work, and she barely had time to think until the bakery closed later that night. Then she had dinner and a pile of homework, and so she didn’t even think about her soulmate until she was heading to bed. She jotted off a quick goodnight to him, and a question about how his first day had gone, and then fell asleep.

The rest of the first week passed in a whirlwind. Marinette quickly found that juggling her new superhero duties was going to be harder than she thought. Even though there were no signs of another akuma, she still went out as Ladybug, coordinating a schedule with Chat Noir of when they would patrol and how to stay in touch. Between that, her schoolwork, and helping out at the bakery, Marinette was absolutely swamped. She had no more than a minute or two each morning and night to write to her soulmate, and no time at all to work on her fashion design projects. As the end of the week approached, however, she started to find a good balance, and figured out how she could fit everything she wanted to do together. 

She had spent the week observing Adrien, and she still wasn’t sure if he was her soulmate or not. There were many more things that lined up with what she knew of her soulmate; Adrien spoke Mandarin, worked with his father’s company, and was concerned with living up to his father’s expectations and legacy. But there were also some things that didn’t quite line up; Adrien had never mentioned siblings, whereas Marinette’s soulmate took every opportunity to whine about his. 

Really, Marinette gave it about 50/50 odds of Adrien being her soulmate. Honestly, if her soulmate had ever told her his name, she wouldn’t have to worry about this! She knew that her soulmate’s parents were the reason he hadn’t told her his name, but she was never quite sure of the reasoning behind it. Surely just telling her his first name wouldn’t cause problems! And so, on Saturday morning, with plenty of free time that she could spend talking to her soulmate, Marinette wrote out a simple message on her arm.

** _Would you tell me your name? There’s a new boy in my class, and you said you were starting school this week, and, well, I just want to make sure._ **

She tucked the pen in her pocket, and walked downstairs. Her soulmate didn’t usually reply to morning messages until lunch time - another point in favor of him not being Adrien, as it likely indicated that they lived in different timezones. Plus, her soulmate had seemed to be just as busy as she was this week, trying to navigate his first week of school. And sure enough, right before lunch a word curled itself across her arm, in her soulmate’s elegant writing.

** _Damian_ **

Marinette breathed out a sigh of relief, and then pulled out her pen, reassuring her soulmate - Damian! - that it was a simple coincidence, but she figured it was better to be absolutely certain than to have to deal with potentially embarrassing miscommunications. He wrote back almost immediately, agreeing with her, and the conversation quickly segued into a comparison of their school weeks. Damian was clearly unimpressed both by the subjects being taught and the other students at his school. He complained that most of the other students were spoiled rich kids (apparently, he went to an elite private academy), and that the teachers were teaching things that he had already learned.

Marinette laughed to herself at the disgruntlement in her soulmate’s words, and shared some of her own stories about 3eme. But when she got to the topic of the akumas, she hesitated. She wanted to tell Damian all about them, about her time as Ladybug and her struggles as a superhero, but she wasn’t certain it was safe. Tikki had stressed the importance of a secret identity, and even though Damian wasn’t in her class, Marinette couldn’t be sure he was safe from Hawkmoth.

After a few long moments, Marinette came to a decision. She wouldn’t lie to her soulmate; that seemed like a violation of the bond between them. Instead, she would just… leave out exactly what she was doing during the akuma attack, and talk about Ladybug in third person. This would, hopefully, keep him from guessing her identity until it was safe for her to tell him.

When she finally described the akuma that had interrupted her first day of school, Damian seemed very concerned for her safety. She touched on the existence of Ladybug and Chat Noir, to reassure him, but tried to push past that part of the conversation as quickly as possible, and Damian let her, bringing the conversation back to more normal topics.

And so Marinette slowly became used to being a superhero. She felt guilty, keeping the secret from her soulmate, particularly when he started sending her tips on how to stay safe from supervillain attacks as a civilian. No matter how much Tikki assured her that she was making the right choice, she still felt terrible about it.

But there wasn’t a whole lot of time to dwell on her guilt; after that first week, Hawkmoth quickly upped his game. Soon she and Chat Noir were facing at least one akuma per week, and sometimes even multiple akumas in a single day! By the end of the second month, Ladybug and Chat Noir were firmly established as Parisian superheroes. When there were no akumas, Parisians would greet Chat and Ladybug during their nightly patrols, and often the duo would take the time to intervene in petty crimes. And as the pair became more experienced, they were able to take on akumas fairly easily, lending more time to track down Hawkmoth.

Of course, there were still some very close calls. When Kim was akumatized into Dark Cupid, and took control of Chat Noir, it took every skill in Ladybug’s repertoire to dodge his Cataclysm while trying to find Dark Cupid’s akuma. Luckily, when Chat Noir pinned her, Ladybug remembered a tip that Damian had written to her a few weeks back, and managed to slide out from beneath him, surprising Dark Cupid for just long enough that she was able to find and purify his akuma.

As the year progressed, Marinette found the best ways to balance her superheroing with her school and her hobbies. She built up a friendship with both Alya, Nino, and Adrien, and the four of them spent many hours hanging out and studying. She got voted as class president, and even managed to win a few awards for her fashion design. But all these new commitments took time, and at the end of the year she was no closer to finding Hawkmoth than when he had first appeared.

She had considered, at times, reaching out to other superheroes around the globe, to help her in her pursuit. Batman would be her first choice, as he was well-known both for mentoring other heroes and for helping out around the globe. Unfortunately, the akumas all came at unpredictable intervals, so Marinette couldn’t afford to leave Paris for even a single day. And Paris itself had no superheroes that she could turn to for help.

Marinette had just decided to broach the subject with Chat Noir when everything took a turn for the worse. A new girl named Lila had joined Marinette’s class on the first day of 3eme, and she threw everything into chaos with her lies. She bragged about knowing all kinds of celebrities, including Ladybug, which made Marinette boil with rage. And then she had the nerve to steal a book from Adrien and dump it in the garbage.

Marinette snagged the book out of the trashcan, intending to return it to Adrien, but was quickly halted by the contents of the book. It listed out various Miraculous gems, many more than just the Black Cat and Ladybug that were currently active. Marinette’s mind raced with the possibilities: perhaps this was a lead on Hawkmoth’s identity. 

But before she could think on it further, she heard Lila spinning more lies about some hero named Volpina, and how she was  _ so _ much better than Ladybug. Marinette’s wrath got the better of her, and she dropped the book, transforming into Ladybug to give the new girl a lecture. With all of Marinette’s stress transferring into anger, the lecture came out harsher than she intended, and Lila ran off, crying. 

When a new hero appeared shortly thereafter, claiming to be Volpina, Marinette was highly suspicious. But when Volpina seemed to save the city from an unexpected asteroid, Chat Noir advocated for her to join their team, and Ladybug reluctantly agreed. Mere moments later, Volpina sprang over to where Chat Noir and Ladybug were sitting, and pointed out the figure of Hawkmoth that was standing on a distant rooftop.

The amount of coincidences occurring were ringing every alarm bell in Ladybug’s mind, but even if it was a trick, she could not afford to pass up a chance to take down Hawkmoth. She raced after him, with Chat Noir and Volpina close behind her, and followed him all the way to the Hotel de Ville. When he paused there, Volpina quickly suggested that they all go different ways to flank him. Ladybug was aggravated by the way Volpina seemed to assume she was in charge, but couldn’t deny that flanking Hawkmoth was a sound strategy. Recalling some advice that Damian had given her a few weeks back, to always listen to heroes in the middle of a battle, she swallowed down her pride and nodded, and the three heroes split up. 

As soon as she was on her own, though, she noticed that Hawkmoth had headed off into the city again. She gave chase, assuming that the other heroes would also be following him. Unfortunately, she quickly lost sight of the villain, and just as she turned around to meet up with the others, she was ambushed by Volpina, who quickly revealed her akumatized nature and demanded Ladybug’s earrings.

With some quick thinking, and a lucky bit of timing, Ladybug was able to determine that Volpina’s (or rather Lila’s) akuma was in her necklace, and that most of the occurrence of the day had been mere illusions generated by the akuma. With a flick of her yoyo, Ladybug reached for the necklace, but caught only air, as yet another illusion vanished into mist.

Ladybug bit back a curse, and called Chat Noir on her communicator. She relayed the information about Lila being an akuma, and suggested that “Volpina” would probably be headed for Agreste Manor, to confront Adrien. Chat agreed to meet her there, and Ladybug swung towards the Manor as quickly as she could. 

As she arrived at Agreste Manor, she could see Adrien backing away from Volpina through the windows of his room. Since she wasn’t going to wait around for Chat Noir while an akuma menaced one of her friends, she swung in through the window, surprising Volpina just long enough to grab her necklace. In one swift movement, Ladybug shattered the necklace and purified the akuma, staring down at the now-detransformed Lila. 

With the akuma battle over, Ladybug could see that she had been a little too harsh to Lila that morning. When she tried to apologize to Lila, though, Lila simply rolled her eyes and snatched her necklace out of Ladybug’s hand. Ladybug looked over at Adrien, checking to make sure he was okay, and watched as confusion and sadness flitted across his face. She reassured him that he was safe now, and then swung out of the window. She still had to deal with the Miraculous book, and until she had figured out why Adrien had it she didn’t want to linger in the Agreste Manor for too long.

When Marinette detransformed in the safety of her bedroom, Tikki flew over to the book, which Marinette had stashed before Volpina showed up. She told Marinette that the book needed to be returned to the Guardian as soon as possible, and told Marinette how to find him. Marinette packed the book up and followed Tikki’s instructions across town to an old tea shop, the same place she had taken Tikki when the kwami had gotten sick.

She stepped into the tea shop, and the owner, Master Fu, looked up from where he was meditating on the floor.

“Hello, Ladybug,” he greeted.

Marinette stepped back in shock. Before she could say anything, though, Tikki spiraled up out of her purse.

“Marinette, this is the Great Guardian.” Tikki explained. “Master Fu, I know you never wanted me to bring her here again but... you must see what she's discovered. Show him, Marinette!”

Marinette hesitated for a moment, and then caught sight of a small green kwami floating over to Master Fu. If Tikki trusted him, if he had a kwami of his own, then surely Marinette could trust him with the book. She reached into her backpack and pulled it out.

Master Fu gasped. “The Miraculous Spellbook. I thought it was lost with the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous, where  _ did _ you find it?”

Marinette bit her lip. If the spellbook was lost with the Butterfly Miraculous, it was likely that the owner of the book was Hawkmoth. She was pretty good friends with Adrien, and she didn’t  _ think _ he was Hawkmoth, but one of the tips Damian had given her for avoiding supervillains was to double and triple check identities.

“One of my classmates brought it to school, but I’ve seen him during akuma attacks before, I don’t…”

Master Fu shook his head, interrupting her. “Based on the skills he has displayed, Hawkmoth is almost certainly an adult. It would have taken years, or even decades of practice with the Miraculous for him to gain some of those abilities.”

Marinette breathed out a sigh, relief and disappointment warring inside her. On the one hand, it was nice to be certain that her friend wasn’t Hawkmoth. On the other hand, though, she was at a dead end on the search for Hawkmoth; without knowing where Adrien got the spell book she had no leads on Hawkmoths possible identity. Then she frowned, and ran through that thought again.

“If I found out where Adrien got the book, that might give me a lead on Hawkmoth's identity,” she muttered.

Master Fu’s eyebrows rose, and he nodded slowly. “Indeed. But you must be very careful, Marinette. If you succeed, you may well find yourself face to face with Hawk Moth.”

Marinette nodded, and held out the spellbook. “In that case, I’ll leave this with you, for safekeeping.”

She turned towards the door, but before she could leave, Master Fu called out to her one last time.

“Before you leave, I feel I should apologize for the situation I have put you in with Chat Noir.”

Marinette tilted her head, confused.

“In normal circumstances, a Black Cat and Ladybug were always meant to be given to a soulmate pair; your true Black Cat would work in perfect unison with you,” Master Fu sighed. “Unfortunately, although you are perfectly suited for the Ladybug Miraculous, your soulbond stretches far out into the distance. I could not afford to wait for you to meet them, as you will need the Black Cat’s power to forcefully sever the bond that Hawkmoth has created with the Butterfly.”

Marinette blinked slowly. She thought that she and Chat Noir worked pretty well together, honestly, although she did wish that he was a bit more careful and got mind controlled a little less. Regardless, though, that was a worry for a later time, so she merely smiled at Master Fu and reassured him that she understood, before racing out of the studio.

At this time of day, Adrien usually had fencing lessons, so Marinette headed for the school as quickly as she could. There, she quickly learned that Adrien was in trouble for losing his father’s book, and was no longer allowed to go to school. After a quick conference with Tikki, Marinette realized that Mr. Agreste could very well be Hawkmoth. With an actual lead, Marinette decided it was time to call in Chat Noir for backup. She transformed and headed to the rooftop, calling him on her communicator as she went. When he didn’t pick up, she left a message for him, and settled in to wait.

Just as she was getting impatient, Chat Noir finally showed up. Ladybug relayed her suspicions about Gabriel Agreste, careful to leave out the involvement of Master Fu, or anything that could tie her to Marinette. When he asked for proof, Ladybug stuttered for a moment, but quickly backed up her claims with the fact that she had seen Adrien Agreste, Gabriel’s son, carrying around the Miraculous spellbook, which was lost with the Butterfly Miraculous. Chat Noir’s eyes went wide and guilty for just a moment, and then he nodded, darting off in the direction of the Agreste Manor. Ladybug followed, close at his heels, sighing at his recklessness.

When the duo arrived at Agreste Manor, they had bare moments to take in the carnage that covered the house before they were confronted by an akumatized Gabriel Agreste calling himself the Collector. As the battle raged across the manor, Chat Noir seemed quite relieved that the akumatization had ruled out Agreste as a suspect. Ladybug, on the other hand, was far more concerned with defeating the akuma - she would worry about her investigation later.

Eventually, the superheroes managed to neutralize the akuma, and Ladybug used Miraculous Ladybug to restore all the damage that the Collector had caused. Although she wanted to stay a bit longer and snoop around for an explanation of why Mr. Agreste would have the spellbook, her transformation was quickly running out, so she raced off back across the city.

Marinette’s transformation dropped right as she landed in the alley behind Master Fu’s shop. She handed Tikki a cookie to recharge, and carefully opened the door. Inside, Master Fu was pouring over the spellbook with a magnifying lense, deeply engrossed. Marinette coughed once to get his attention. When he looked up, startled, she sat down next to him and explained the results of her investigation into Hawkmoth. Master Fu agreed that Mr. Agreste’s akumatization ruled him out as a likely suspect, and frowned contemplatively when Marinette mentioned that Adrien was now grounded indefinitely for losing the book.

“And now Adrien will never be able to come back to school because I can never give him that book back.” Marinette sighed. “I know the information will help us in the fight against Hawkmoth, but I wish there was a way to help my friend.”

Master Fu pulled a cell phone out of his pocket, and wagged it in Marinette’s direction. It took a moment for her to understand, but when she did, a tentative smile crept across her face. She sat down across from MAster Fu, and helped him photograph the whole book. Once they were done, Marinette carefully tucked the book into her backpack, and raced back to the Agreste Manor.

Luckily for her, Mr. Agreste was still downstairs when she reached the Manor. She gave him back the book, and gave him a  _ highly _ abridged version of how she had rescued it from where Lila dumped it in the garbage, leaving out all associated Miraculous events. When he asked why she took so long to return it, Marinette stumbled her way through an excuse about being inspired by some of the pictures in the book. Eventually, Mr. Agreste seemed to believe her excuses, and assured her that, with the return of the book, Adrien would be allowed to return to school.

Now that she knew of his existence, Marinette found herself spending more and more time at Master Fu’s shop. They discussed the capabilities of the kwamis, and in Master Fu’s presence Tikki became more communicative than ever, telling Marinette more about how her powers worked. Master Fu also revealed the existence of the other Miraculous that he was protecting, and began teaching her about their skills, with the help of his kwami, Wazz.

And the additional knowledge came not a moment too soon. Chat Noir had started dropping out of patrols early and showing up late, leaving Ladybug to shoulder more and more of the burden of protecting Paris. When Ladybug confronted him about it, after he had outright missed a few patrols and had shown up very late to an akuma attack, Chat Noir seemed to shrink under her glare. He explained that his father had noticed his frequent disappearances, and was keeping him under much tighter watch, which made it hard to slip away. Ladybug agreed that he should take whatever steps necessary to protect his identity, but that his presence would be of vital importance when they finally encountered Hawkmoth.

And so, when Chat Noir failed to show up to the akuma fight a week after their conversation, Ladybug did not waste any time waiting for him. Instead, she raced over to Master Fu’s shop, and, with his permission, borrowed one of the other Miraculous gems. She tracked down her friend, Alya, and lent her the fox kwami, Trixx for a single fight. When the two successfully took down the akuma together, Ladybug began relying on temporary holders to make up the gap caused by Chat Noir’s increasing absences.

But she tried to call on the temporary holders only during akuma fights, which left Ladybug shouldering almost all of the patrols on her own. Between the added time that she had to dedicate there, her new studies with Master Fu, and balancing her civilian life, Marinette became more and more stressed. Even her soulmate noticed; he had started encouraging her to take some time off from any of her extracurriculars, as she wrote to him about feeling stretched thin almost everyday. 

The return of Lila in the spring only exacerbated the problem. Before her return, Marinette had managed some of her ever tightening schedule by relying on her friends’ help, but Lila quickly stripped away that support network with a series of ever increasing lies. Marinette’s grades suffered, and she had to drop almost all of her designing time in order to keep up with her superhero work. It was clear to Marinette that she could not maintain her balance for much longer, and as the school year crept to a close, her thoughts once again turned towards seeking help from established superheroes. 

But then, a few days after summer break began, Marinette’s luck began to shine through again. Master Fu had been teaching her about the powers of a lower tier of Miraculous, the Zodiac tier, and they had recently moved on to the Horse Miraculous. When Fu mentioned that the Horse Miraculous lent the power of teleportation, Marinette’s mind began racing. If she could use the Horse Miraculous to teleport out of Paris, she might be able to convince another hero to help her, at least until she could track down Hawkmoth.

When Marinette relayed her plan to Master Fu, he was reluctant at first, but eventually agreed that her current situation was untenable and that this was a potential solution. Marinette assured him that she would be very careful, and take the Miraculous off immediately if she suffered any ill effects. And she did not plan to instantly begin teleporting around the globe; she would devise a solid plan before she went anywhere.

With some tentative rules established, Marinette took the Horse Miraculous home with her that night. In the secrecy of her bedroom, she introduced herself to the Horse kwami, Kaalki, and together Marinette, Tikki, and Kaalki started sketching out a plan to contact other superheroes. In a flash of inspiration, Marinette decided to ask her soulmate which superhero he thought would be best to help with the situation in Paris. After all, Damian often offered her tips on avoiding supervillains; it was more than likely that he knew about some established heroes as well.

When Damian recommended Batman as the best hero to help counter Hawkmoth, Marinette almost cheered. She had been leaning towards the Dark Knight herself; he was widely acknowledged to be one of the world’s best detectives, and he had past experience in mentoring younger heroes. Plus, he was not averse to teamwork, as his history with the Justice League showed. The real trick, in her opinion, would be convincing him to leave Gotham.

After several days worth of planning, Marinette was ready to begin her first attempt. She waited until well past midnight, so that she could be certain that it was already sundown in Gotham. Then she donned Kaalki’s glasses, and used the Voyage power to teleport her across the globe, into a dark alleyway of Gotham. As she detransformed, she handed Kaalki a few sugar cubes, and then called out to Tiiki to transform her into her usual Ladybug outfit.

With her yo-yo acting as a grappling hook, Ladybug launched herself across the skies of Gotham, scanning around for signs of Batman. She had heard that he primarily traveled by Batmobile, and so she was scanning the street level looking for the distinctive car. She rounded the corner of yet another roof, and launched herself back into the air, only to collide with someone mid-arch, the two falling to the ground in a rough tangle of capes and wires.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damian: *Absolutely overestimates the capabilities of civilians when providing tips to Marinette*  
Marinette: *also overestimating the capabilities of civilians* Wow these tips are really helpful for superheroes too!
> 
> Because of the soulmate dynamic in this ‘verse, Chat Noir is NOT in love with Ladybug (he’s never heard from his soulmate, but she’s talked about hers a couple of times, and he’s not going to get in the way of that). As such, he takes the increased surveillance from his father more seriously, and stops going out as much to protect his identity. In turn, Hawkmoth holds more of his powers in reserve, because there is no point in going all out without a guarantee that Chat Noir will be there. (He needs both the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous’ for his wish, after all) This means that Hero Day never happens in this ‘verse (which also means that I’m free to rewrite the Peacock’s powers because the canon ones stink)  
Similarly, Master Fu stuck around as a guiding figure for a lot longer because he could see the strain that Chat Noir’s absence was putting on Marinette, and so he slowed down her guardian training accordingly.
> 
> Sorry about this chapter taking so long, y’all. I spent my winter break recovering from top surgery (*jazz hands*), and then my senior design project has been taking WAY more time than I expected. I make no guarantees about how quickly I can get out a chapter 5, for the same reason. As a compensation, I put up a quick DVD commentary of chapter 3, as another work in the series.


	5. i’ll be hanging around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian meets Ladybug for the first time, and encounters his soulmate. (Not, of course, at the same time; that would be utterly bizarre!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damian and Marinette are super fun to write in their superhero personas, because I headcanon that both of them, like, aggressively compartmentalize. Like, Damian is super strict about using superhero names only when in costume, even in his thoughts, and he makes sure that even in his mind he doesn’t say things - like the name of his soulmate - that could be traced back to his civilian persona. (And Marinette does the same thing; it’s part of why she has a little bit of cognitive dissonance between Ladybug and her civilian self)
> 
> Also, the timelines have synced up now, so each chapter will cover much shorter periods of time, and won't have as much timeline overlap (there will still be _some_ timeline overlap, because that's part of the fun of alternating POV!)

Robin swung through the skies of Gotham, distracted. Instead of paying attention to his surroundings, he was mulling over the first fragments of his plan to convince his family to go to Paris. He had first started plotting a couple of days ago when his soulmate had asked him a hypothetical question about which superheroes he felt would best help Ladybug in defeating Hawkmoth. Although Marinette probably just meant it as a thought exercise, it had increased the worry that he had felt ever since hearing about the supers in Paris.

Robin was startled out of his thoughts in the middle of his next swing, colliding midair with someone. The two fell through the sky, and Robin’s cape, which was usually an asset in his maneuvers, tangled up with whatever grapple the other had been using. As they hit the ground, Robin unclasped his cape and sprung away, hands ready by his katanas in case the other figure was a hostile. With the sharp zipping sound of a cord retracting, Robin’s cape fell to the ground, revealing the figure that he had collided with, a figure that he recognized despite having never met.

“Ladybug?” he said, taking a step towards the red-suited heroine.

Ladybug’s eyes widened, and she tightened her grip on her yoyo - likely the source of the zipping, her primary weapon as well as transportation - before taking in his costume.

“Robin.” She let out a sigh, and some of the tension drained out of her body. “Excellent, I am here to speak with Batman about the situation in Paris.”

Robin quickly ran through a few scenarios in his head; he wanted to be sure he would get to go to Paris, would get to help his soulmate. If he just took Ladybug to Batman, there was the chance that Batman would simply go to Paris on his own, and leave Robin in Gotham. But if he made sure Nightwing was involved… well, Nightwing knew how important Robin’s soulbond was.

Robin reached up to the comm inside his ear, tweaking it so he was broadcasting to the whole team. “We’ve got an out-of-town super looking for our assistance. Oracle, do you have a spot we could rendezvous?” He nodded as Oracle relayed a meet-up location, and as the other three heroes out on patrol - Batman, Nightwing, and Black Bat - all agreed to be there. He swapped his comm back to Oracle-only and looked over at Ladybug.

“I guess I’m following you?” she asked with a smile, and when he nodded she started swinging her yoyo in a circle. “After you!”

Robin shot his grappling hook at one of the nearby buildings, intending to take it slow so Ladybug didn’t get left behind, but she clearly had no issues following him up, the zing of her yoyos right on his tail. He gradually picked up speed as they arched across the city skyline, and she matched him swing-for-swing, falling into an easy rhythm. After a moment or two, the pair were joined by Nightwing; he’d been patrolling around the same area as Robin, and the three raced towards the spot that Oracle had given them.

Batman, of course, was already there when they arrived, perched dramatically in the shadows atop the building. Robin rolled his eyes as Black Bat dropped in from above; everyone on this team was far too dramatic for their own good.

“Batman, this is Ladybug,” Robin introduced. “She’s a superhero from Paris, she and her partner Chat Noir have been dealing with the supervillain Hawkmoth for almost two years now.”

Ladybug startled, looking over at Robin, clearly confused by the fact that he knew more information than she had given him. He simply raised his eyebrows and nodded towards Batman; she had come to talk to Batman specifically and he was not above using the knowledge he had gained from his soulmate to make Ladybug’s trip easier.

Ladybug turned to Batman and squared her shoulders before starting a rundown of the situation in Paris. As he listened, Robin grew more and more concerned - clearly, things in Paris were much worse than he had realized from talking with his soulmate. Ladybug laid out how stretched thin she was, how her partner was having to pull back for his own safety, and because of it, she didn’t have the time she needed to devote to tracking down Hawkmoth. And Robin clearly wasn’t the only one concerned; Nightwing kept darting sideways glances at Robin, and Black Bat’s hands were flapping discreetly at her side. Batman showed no outward signs of distress as Ladybug finished up her story, but Robin was sure that he was plenty concerned behind his stony exterior.

“... and so if there are any heroes that are able to visit Paris for a while, their help would be greatly appreciated,” Ladybug concluded, biting her bottom lip.

Robin took a step forward, ready to declare his support, but Batman held up a hand, forestalling him.

“We would be more than willing to lend a hand to our fellow heroes,” Batman said, “A few of my team could travel to Paris to assist you, although I myself must remain in Gotham.”

Ladybug sighed in relief. “That would be wonderful. I have to return to Paris soon - I can’t be away for too long, in case Hawkmoth unleashes an akuma - when should I expect your team?”

“A month should give us enough time to handle the logistics of an extended stay in Paris,” Batman said, jotting a number down on a piece of paper that he pulled out from his utility belt. “And here is the emergency Batphone line if you have an urgent need before then. That goes straight to Oracle, who runs our comms and coordinates us.” He tapped the ear of his cowl to indicate what he was talking about.

Ladybug thanked him again, stowing the paper in her yoyo, and then took off with a running leap, zipping back across the rooftops. Robin turned to Batman and opened his mouth once again, only to be met by Batman shaking his head.

“We’ll discuss it back at the Batcave,” he said, and at his nod all four vigilantes took off, racing back to their base.

When the team reconvened in the Batcave, Batman initiated lockdown procedures as the team stripped out of their costumes, leaving only the domino masks on. This was the only time it was safe to talk about things that affected both their civilian and their hero personas, when they could be absolutely sure that no one could interrupt or overhear them.

“I’m going,” Damian said, his tone leaving no room for debate. “My soulmate’s in Paris.”

Cass’s fingers flew through the air with excitement. “I’m going too,” she signed.

Damian’s father took in the determined looks on their two faces and sighed. Tim, who had wandered down to the Batcave before the lockdown, and Barbara both volunteered to stay in Gotham, citing prior obligations. Stephanie and Jason were both out of town; Batgirl was chasing down a drug ring on the west coast, and Red Hood was off-planet, working with Arsenal and Dick’s girlfriend Starfire to deal with some sort of zombie problem. 

Damian’s father rubbed at his forehead, and turned to Dick. “Do you mind being adult supervision on this one? I’m already set up to host the charity galas this summer, and lord knows Gotham needs all the funds I can coax out of the socialites after the Joker’s latest breakout.”

Dick nodded. “It’ll give us a good cover story too; as next in line for Wayne Enterprises, it would make sense for me to be leading one of our international offices - why not Paris? I could say that I was showing these two the ropes,” he continued, pointing at Damian and Cass, who glanced conspiratorially at one another. “Plus, even though we won't have Oracle on the comms, we’ll have her as an ace up my sleeves!” He wiggled his eyebrows and flashed the soulmate writing on his arms around the room, as Damian groaned at the pun.

With the team decided, Dick, Cass, and Damian sat down to work on logistics for the trip. They would leave out of Gotham in nine days - that way there would be plenty of time for them to establish a presence in Paris before the superheroes needed to appear, but also enough time between Ladybug’s request and their departure that even if there had been eavesdroppers on the rooftop conversation, no one would align the two events. Dick called up Miss Martian, and she and her uncle agreed to cover a handful of patrols in Gotham as Nightwing, Robin, and Black Bat while the Waynes were in Paris, just to further obfusticate their identities.

With all the incriminating superhero details straightened out, Dick disabled the lockdown, and the three-headed up to the Manor to go to sleep. As he laid in his bed, Damian’s thought turned once again to his soulmate - he was going to get to see her, to meet her in person! He wanted to tell her so badly that he was coming to Paris, but he knew it was better to wait. Four days, he decided, it would be safe to tell her in four days, and then he drifted off to sleep.

Four days later, Damian struck up a conversation about the trip to Paris at breakfast. He, Dick, and Cass hashed out details about where they would be staying (apparently the Wayne family had a four-bedroom penthouse in Paris) and about transport (the Wayne private jet might be a bit more wasteful than a commercial plane, but it was also less likely to flag their luggage full of vigilante equipment). As breakfast finished up, Damian snagged a marker off the counter and wrote out a message to Marinette.

** _It looks like I will be spending this summer in Paris._ **

Damian smiled as a response began to trace its way up his arm almost immediately. He always felt so lucky that his breakfast aligned with her lunch breaks; her near-instant responses helped the conversation flow so much better than disjointed communication in the late night and early morning. 

** _Really?! When are you arriving?_ **

Damian sat back down with the marker, and began relaying the civilian version of his plans to Marinette. He felt a little guilty leaving out the true impetus for his trip to Paris, but no more so than he normally felt when he had to leave out the details of his superhero work. He was careful, though, never to lie to his soulmate; he phrased things so that someone not in the know would make assumptions, but didn’t write any outright falsehoods. After all, it wasn’t as if he intended to keep the secret forever - all of his siblings’ soulmates knew about their identities (though to be fair, most of his siblings’ soulmates were  _ also _ superheroes) - but it was a conversation that really needed to happen in person. It did not, of course, escape Damian’s notice that it could be a conversation that he might be having sooner rather than later, as he and Marinette would likely be meeting  _ in-person _ very soon!

Just as that thought occurred to him, Marinette mentioned she would be working in her parent’s bakery the day he was set to arrive in Paris, and invited him to come by and meet her. Damian quickly agreed; he wanted to spend as much time as possible with Marinette while he was in Paris because it would be far easier to protect her from akumas if he was by her side. (Certainly not for any other reason, no matter how much his brothers teased him)

On the plane ride to Paris, Damian could hardly control his anxiety. There was just so much on the line; what if his soulmate decided she did not actually like him? It was rare, but it happened, and it would be just Damian’s luck that it happened to him. Or what if she decided he had kept too many secrets from her: not just his superhero status, which he planned to wait a while before breaking to her, but even his last name? The fact that his father was a multi-millionaire?

There was also the concern that she might not get along with his siblings. Dick could be overly rambunctious at the best of times, and plenty of people were put off by the fact that Cass only communicated with sign language and emojis. And none of them were all that good at relating with civilians!

On top of all of that, there was the potential problem of him having to run off repeatedly to deal with superhero duties. What if she thought he was flaky and – Cass tapped Damian on the arm, breaking him out of spiraling thoughts. When he looked over at her she raised her eyebrows and pointed at the fasten seatbelts light that had come on overhead. 

Damian quickly masked his confusion. Surely he hadn’t spent the entire eight-hour flight worrying, but a glance out the window showed that they were indeed on the descent to the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Dick wandered over and sat down near Cass and Damian, buckling in for the last bit of their flight.

When they landed in the airport and passed through customs, there was some debate over what to do first. Damian wanted to go straight to the Dupan-Cheng bakery since it was already creeping towards evening. Dick and Cass, however, wanted to get their gear and luggage to the penthouse first, and eventually, Damian acquiesced. The ride to the penthouse seemed interminably long, and then both of Damian’s siblings insisted on dallying around and getting everything “situated”. 

Eventually, Damian gave up on waiting for his siblings. He told Dick that he was done unpacking and was going to go to the bakery, and his brother waived him off - it wasn’t his first time in a new city and Dick knew Damian had the skills to get around just fine on his own. So Damian set off by himself and quickly found the bakery, which was closer to the penthouse than he had expected. Looking through the window, he could see a short, pale-skinned and dark-haired girl manning the register, who was almost certainly Marinette. He entered the bakery and walked up to the counter, ordering a pastry that would need to be warmed up.

“And what name should I call when it’s ready?” Marinette asked.

Damian smiled, and flipped over his arm so that the underside was clearly visible. Marinette had been doodling bees earlier that day, and the golden ink that she used stood out starkly against Damian’s darker skin. “Damian Wayne,” he replied with a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damian (and the whole Batfam, tbh) is like way, way overkill on the whole opsec thing, but, to be fair, they don’t have magical gods of creation and destruction helping to hide their identities. They don’t even have the safety of Superman where most civilians don’t even think he has a secret identity; everyone knows Batman has a day job, and EVERYONE wants to know what it is.  
Also, I have decided that canon is a Dumpster fire, and I’m only saving the things I like. Therefore: Jason never tried to revenge kill Joker, but he still took the name Red Hood. (why? because I needed a way to differentiate him that's why) He mostly runs with the Outlaws, although they just call themselves that for fun, not for being-run-out-of-town reasons. Starfire is dating Dick because I love them. (but mostly for Mar’i reasons) Barbara and Dick are platonic soulmates, and did date for a little while but decided they were better as friends. The Batfam currently consists of Bruce Wayne/Batman (39), Dick Grayson/Nightwing (28), Barbara Gordon/Oracle (28), Jason Todd/Red Hood (24), Stephanie Brown/Batgirl (22), Tim Drake/Red Robin (21), Cassandra Cain/Black Bat (17), and Damian Wayne/Robin (15). Everybody but Barbara has been adopted into the Wayne family (Barbara already has a dad, and he’s awesome, Bruces is like a weird combo of older brother/uncle figure)  
And I’m so sorry that this chapter took so long, my last semester of college was absolutely crazy, plus I had a cross country move. Hopefully now that I’m a Real Adult™ things will settle down.


	6. if you like it or not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette gets to meet her soulmate face-to-face, and struggles with the idea of taking the Black Cat Miraculous away from Chat Noir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear every chapter gets longer as I keep writing! The bullet-points outline for this chapter was 1134 words long, before I even started fleshing it out. I thought about breaking it down into a couple of smaller chapters, but I really like the alternating POV that I have going, and pretty much all of this chapter is Marinette-exclusive events. Also, for those of you hoping for a big drama around the fact that Damian is a WAYNE, sorry, but its really not that dramatic. I’ve hinted in previous chapters, but Marinette has already pretty much figured out that Damian’s family is rich based on the way he talks about his life, and one random multi-millionaire family is much like another, especially internationally. (I categorically refuse to make the Bruce a billionaire because being Batman no longer makes since when you are literally playing on the same scale as some governments)

Marinette rifled through papers, trying to get all of her thoughts in order. Since her return from Gotham, she had spent a lot of time trying to collect up all of her current knowledge about Hawkmoth into an easy-to-read dossier to give to Batman’s team when they arrived in Paris. Not that she had a huge amount of info on Hawkmoth, but what little she had was surely better than nothing. She scrolled through the Ladyblog posts for the umpteenth time, hoping to find some other scrap of information that she could give to help point the investigation in any direction at all, before sighing and going downstairs for a lunch break.

As she ate lunch, Marinette kept working on the plan to identify Hawkmoth. It had only been four days since Batman had agreed to help her, which left almost four weeks before they arrived in Paris, but it was better to be prepared. She was so deep in thought, strategizing on the best ways to coordinate with the team, that she didn’t notice the new words scrawling their way across her arm until she reached for her next bite of lunch. When she did notice them, she shook all thought of superheroes out of her head and flipped her arm over to better see what her soulmate had written to her.

** _It looks like I will be spending this summer in Paris._ **

Marinette blinked, and then re-read the words, sure she had misunderstood. But no, they still sat, bold across her arm, proclaiming that she would soon have the ability to meet her soulmate face-to-face. Marinette let out a squeal so high it was nearly inaudible, and grabbed for her marker, scrawling excitedly across her arm.

** _Really?! When are you arriving?_ **

Damian wrote back almost immediately, telling Marinette about a summer internship with the overseas branch of his father’s company. Apparently, his eldest brother was going to be leading the Paris branch of the company for a while, and Damian and his sister (Marinette thought it was the younger of his two sisters, but honestly Damian had a huge number of siblings and it was hard to keep track) would be learning the ropes of the company as well. When she found out that Damian and his siblings were going to be arriving in Paris in five days, Marinette almost hyperventilated, and barely managed to keep it together for long enough to invite him to visit her family’s patisserie after he arrived.

After the conversation finished, Marinette found herself almost hyperventilating with worries. Why had she invited him to the bakery like that; he probably had far more important things to be doing after he landed. What if he came to the bakery, and all their food was bad, and he decided he didn’t want to be soulmates with her? Or worse, what if he met her and didn’t like her at all and stopped writing to her altogether? Or if his siblings met her, and then decided that  _ they _ didn’t like her and banned Damian from seeing her?

Disaster after disaster sprung up in Marinette’s head, thoughts turning to her superhero identity. What if there were akuma attacks while she was hanging out with Damian - she would have to make excuses to get away and fight the akumas, and then he might think she was flaky. Or what if he found out that she was Ladybug, and was mad that she had kept secrets from him? And then her brain came up with even worse scenarios: what if Hawkmoth akumatized Damian, and she had to fight him as an akuma? Or if Hawkmoth figured out that Damian was Ladybug’s soulmate, and targeted him to try and get the earrings?

Marinette raced back upstairs to her bedroom and flopped face-first onto her bed, hysterically laying out increasingly catastrophic problems that could occur after meeting her soulmate. Tikki hovered around her head, muttering reassuringly and trying to talk Marinette out of her spiraling thoughts. It didn’t end up working; Marinette continued inventing dire scenarios for several hours until the akuma alert blared from her phone, snapping her out of her funk to go deal with her superhero duties.

For the next few days, Marinette was a whirlwind of activity. In the five days before her soulmate arrived, there were three different akuma attacks (one of which required the help of both Bunnix  _ and _ Viperion, and was still almost a disaster), on top of her usual patrols. She also kept working on the dossier for Batman’s team and did everything she could to prepare for Damian’s arrival. (Was it  _ entirely _ necessary to sew a brand-new outfit to wear while meeting him, given that he had never seen any of her outfits before? YES)

And so by the time Friday, the day Damian was supposed to land in Paris, arrived, Marinette was completely worn out. Luckily, manning the front counter of the bakery didn’t take a lot of brainpower; Marinette could practically run customer service on autopilot. In between customers, she spent the morning working on a redesign for Queen Bee’s costume - sure, she had no control over other superhero’s costumes, and she probably wouldn’t call on Chloe as a holder again anyway, but it was a good exercise in fashion. She found herself absentmindedly doodling little golden bees on her arm as she thought; hopefully, her soulmate wouldn’t mind them too much.

When a boy about her age wandered into the bakery, Marinette wasn’t paying a lot of attention. He ordered a pastry that required warming, so she asked for his name, to call out when the pastry was ready. The boy flipped over his arm on the counter, and a weird sparkle of gold caught Marinette’s eye, although she carefully avoided looking at whatever the boy’s soulmate had drawn on his arm.

“Damian Wayne,” the boy said, smiling.

Marinette started at the name, and then looked down at the arm the boy had flipped over. Sure enough, the same golden bees that she had been doodling all morning shined up at her. Quickly, before she could change her mind, she held up a finger, asking for a moment, and then darted back into the kitchen.

“Maman, Papa, I’m taking a break!” she called, and, upon receiving confirmation, darted back out front.

She hung up her apron and walked around the counter to greet Damian. The two of them sat down at one of the bakery’s tables and started talking. It was awkward at first; neither quite knew what to say, and they were both fairly nervous. Luckily, Maman broke the ice when she brought over a whole tray of fresh pastries, instead of just the one that Damian had ordered. After laughing at overinvested parental figures, the two were able to talk much more easily. After all, it’s not as if they were strangers; the two had been writing back forth for more than 10 years now. Talking in person, they discovered, was much the same as writing back and forth, just quicker and easier.

The two talked for hours, about a variety of different things. Damian apologized again for not telling Marinette his full name before they met, but Marinette shrugged it off. The name Wayne seemed a little bit familiar, but not hugely. She had already figured out a while ago, from various things that he had written to her that his family was fairly wealthy, so she figured that his family had probably been on the news at one point or another, and it had trickled all the way over to France. 

By the time their conversation wound down, it was getting late. When Marinette started squinting against the glare of the sun as it sank through the sky, Damian, looked down at his phone and started. Marinette realized it had gotten pretty late, and so they said their goodbyes. The pair exchanged phone numbers - while Damian was in Paris it would be far more efficient to text or call instead of needing to write on arms - and made plans to meet up again the next day as Damian left the bakery.

As she got ready for patrol that night, Marinette spent a couple of minutes squealing with Tikki about how wonderful her soulmate was before transforming. In a flash of red light, Ladybug swung out of her balcony. She knew that she would probably be patrolling alone again; it was increasingly rare that Chat Noir would be able to escape the overprotective watch of his family.

Just as the thought crossed her mind, however, she saw movement in the corner of her eye across the Parisian roofline. She turned toward it, and sure enough, a figure was poling across the skyline. She raced over and greeted Chat Noir, happy that he had managed to make it out for patrol.

As it turned out, both she and Chat Noir had news for one another. Chat Noir’s news was bleak; his father had been acting increasingly suspicious about both his camouflaged miraculous and his disappearances, even as infrequent as they were. Chat didn’t know how much more scrutiny he could stand up to, but he also mentioned feeling guilty that he wasn’t pulling his weight in the akuma battles and the search for Hawkmoth’s identity. Ladybug reassured him that it was fine - after all, keeping his identity secret was of the utmost importance since they would not be able to defeat Hawkmoth for good without him. She told him about her trip to Gotham, and how the Bats had agreed to come to assist them, assuring him that with their help she would almost certainly make more headway on finding out who Hawkmoth was.

She also told him about her soulmate coming to Paris. She was careful about the details, but it seemed to cheer him up to know that she had met her soulmate in person. Ladybug knew that Chat Noir was a romantic at heart, and believed very firmly in the power of soulmate bonds, even though he had never found any writing on his own skin. But hearing about her soulmate always made him happier, and as they two completed their patrol, he seemed much more upbeat than he had at the start of the night.

At the end of the patrol, Ladybug stopped Chat Noir before he could head off. “There is one more thing, about my soulmate,” she said.

Chat Noir sat down on the edge of the roof and tilted his head, waiting for her to continue.

“A long time ago, when I first met the Guardian, he apologized to me.” Ladybug paused, considering how to phrase her next words. She had mentioned the Guardian to Chat Noir a couple of times before, but Chat had never met the Guardian in person, and she didn't want him to take the Guardian’s words the wrong way. “He said that the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous were usually given out to soulmate pairs, resulting in a perfect balance of power between them. Unfortunately, when Hawkmoth appeared, my soulmate was far out of reach, and so he chose the most compatible user to work with me. Not having a Chat Noir was not an option; your powers are vital to removing Hawkmoth’s miraculous, and if either one of the major miraculouses is active for too long without the other, it can throw the magical systems of the entire world out of whack.”

As Ladybug spoke, Chat Noir seemed to shrink into himself. Ladybug looked at him, and bit her lip - this was exactly the problem that she was afraid of. And so, when Chat Noir opened his mouth, a resigned expression on his face, she held up a single finger to forestall him and kept talking.

“But Chat, you’ve been a great partner to me throughout this whole fight. Don’t think of yourself as second-best; I don’t want any other partner than you. I know you haven’t managed to make it to all the battles, but you’re  _ my partner _ , and I wouldn’t trade our friendship for all the soulmate bonds in the world.”

Chat swallowed, straightening up. Ladybug’s words seemed to fill his confidence back up, but he still hesitated before speaking. “But if the Ladybug and Black Cat are meant to be soulmates, and your soulmate is in town, shouldn’t -” he closed his eyes, pained, and then took a deep breath before continuing, “- shouldn’t you give him the Black Cat Miraculous.”

Ladybug had started shaking her head emphatically before Chat even finished. “Whatever could have been, the fact remains that  _ you _ are my partner now. Da- my soulmate might ‘balance my powers’ better, or he might not. I’m not taking your miraculous away from you;  _ you  _ are Chat Noir, and we are going to take down Hawkmoth together.”

With that, she pulled Chat Noir in for a hug, and then sat back, offering her hand for a fistbump. “Partners?”

“Partners,” Chat Noir agreed, bumping her fist with his. He offered her a smile, still tinged with melancholy, and then sprung away into the night.

Ladybug sighed and headed for home. She’d have to see what else she could do to reassure her partner. Even though he wasn’t her soulmate, he was still her best friend, and he deserved better than to feel like he came in second once again.

The next day, while Damian was off interning at his father’s company, Marinette went to visit Master Fu for her usual Guardian training. As Fu puttered around his shop, making a pot of tea, Marinette pondered how to break the news to him. Finally, as he set the tea down on the table, she simply blurted it out.

“My soulmate is in Paris!”

Master Fu smiled widely. “That’s excellent news, my dear; have you given any thought to the Black Cat miraculous?”

Marinette nodded, projecting as much of her Ladybug confidence as she could into her words. “I’m leaving it with Chat Noir.” She gnawed on her lower lip for a moment before continuing, “But I had thought about giving Damian a different-”

“No,” Master Fu cut her off with a sharp shake of his head. “Your soulmate is a match to the Black Cat as your balance. With a non-soulmate Black Cat your powers are already off-balance; adding your soulmate into the mix with a secondary Miraculous could throw things off even further. I have to heal your kwami about once a year, and that is already far too frequent. I would encourage you to reconsider retaining Chat Noir as your Black Cat, but ultimately I will leave the decision to you, as the next Guardian.”

Marinette’s eyes had gotten wider and wider as Master Fu spoke. She felt a bit guilty that the imbalance was causing harm to Tikki when she had assumed that kwami’s just fell sick every so often. She supposed it made sense that neither Tikki nor Master Fu had ever mentioned the cause when there was nothing to be done, but it still felt bad that no matter what occurred someone was going to get hurt. Nevertheless, she was going to stick to her decision to leave the Black Cat with Chat Noir; he was her best friend and didn’t deserve to have such a core part of his life ripped from him. She’d keep an eye out, though, for anything that she could do to help mitigate the effects of the imbalance on Tikki, and maybe she’d discuss the problem with Chat after Hawkmoth was defeated.

After a few long moments of introspection, Marinette put the conversation to the side for the moment and focused on learning more about becoming the Guardian. She spent almost the whole day learning from Master Fu and pouring over the Miraculous book for knowledge, a luxury that she could afford now that it was summertime and she did not have to worry about school. When dinner time arrived, though, she started glancing at the clock, wanting to ensure that she was not late for her planned dinner with Damian. Noticing her impatience, Master Fu shooed her off to the park, insisting that youth should be enjoyed and they would have plenty of time for lessons later.

  
  


The next two weeks passed by in a whirlwind of activity. She was still busy during the summer, between helping out more at the bakery, working on her fashion portfolio for lycee, and studying with Master Fu, not to mention the prep work that she was still trying to get organized before the Bats arrived in Paris and the occasional akuma. (She had informed Chat Noir that they were coming to help, but she was still taking point on the organizing because Chat seemed even busier during the summer than during the school year!) Despite all the demands on her time, she made sure to make plenty of time for Damian too; they often ate lunch together and hung out for an hour or two each day after working hours. Being able to spend time with him, face-to-face, without any of the pressures of the rest of her life, was doing wonders for Marinette’s stress levels.

And even without trying, Damian slotted seamlessly into her life, improving things that had long been left to fester. One balmy afternoon, the pair had decided to eat lunch in the park, and they chatted easily as they walked there together. When they arrived at the park, though, Marinette spotted Lila and Alya having a picnic near the entrance, and fear flashed through her eyes. Damian noticed, of course, pausing and turning towards her, but before he could ask what was wrong, Lila’s voice carried past them.

“And if I tell you, you  _ have _ to keep it a secret, Alya, Ladybug made me  _ promise _ I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

Marinette rolled her eyes; Lila lying about something new her “friend” Ladybug had told her was an every-other-week occurrence. Then her eyes widened as she watched Damian dart towards Lila and Alya, hissing for Lila to be quiet. Marinette followed him over, a bit bemused.

“You might want to be careful where you say things like that,” Damian hissed as the two girls looked up at his glowering face. “ _ Anyone _ could overhear you, and there are plenty of terrible things that can happen to people who are thought to hold the confidence of heroes.”

Alya’s eyes widened in shock, but Lila tittered, high and fake, fluttering her eyelashes. “Oh, don’t worry about me; Ladybug is _ far _ from the only hero I know.” She smirked as she continued her tale, “I’ve hung out with both the Young Justice League  _ and _ the Teen Titans, so I know  _ plenty _ of self-defense tricks. Huntress even mentioned she was interested in taking me on as a protege when I helped her find a trafficking ring in Italy, but I had to turn her down because I couldn’t  _ bear _ to leave Mamma on her own.”

Damian’s glower had increased with every word that fell from Lila’s mouth, and Marinette noticed that Alya had kept scooting farther and farther away from him throughout Lila’s story. She caught Alya’s eye and gave a reassuring smile, and saw Alya relax a bit before Marinette turned her focus back to Damian, uncertain as to what had prompted his wrath. Sure, she had told him about Lila, but since he had never met her there was no way for him to know she was lying. And surely it couldn’t be as dangerous as he implied to mention  _ knowing _ a superhero, even in Gotham with all their violent villains.

Marinette stepped up behind Damian to tug him away; perhaps they could find a different park to eat lunch at. But Damian was not finished with Lila. He handed his bag of lunch to Marinette, and pulled his phone out of his pocket, continuing to berate her.

“_None_ of the teams associated with the Justice League, _including_ the Teen Titans and the Young Justice would _ever_ involve civilians in their work, especially not to ‘hang out with them’ at their _secret headquarters_!.” he snarled, jabbing viciously at his phone. “They have made _repeated_ press statements that the work they do is _Far._ _Too. Dangerous._ And furthermore,” he brandished the phone at Lila, showing her something, “despite the fact that she is from an Italian family, _HUNTRESS HAS NEVER BEEN TO ITALY!_”

Marinette watched as Alya leaned forward to get a better view of the screen that Damian was shoving at Lila. Whatever was on the phone caused Alya’s eyes to widen, and she whipped her head around to look at Lila in the same instant that Damian turned to storm off, revealing Marinette standing behind him. A scowl of hatred twisted Lila’s face right as Alya looked at the Italian girl, and though she quickly hid it once more, it was clear that Alya had seen from the gasp she let out.

As Marinette turned to follow Damian out of the park, she could hear the raised voices of her two classmates fighting behind her. She tried to ignore it, though, when Damian turned to her asking her if there was another park she would like to eat at, in a clear, if unspoken, apology. She nodded, and he followed her as she headed off away from the park. Luckily, she managed to make it out of earshot of the still arguing duo before bursting into uncontrollable laughter, much to the clear bewilderment of her soulmate.

When Marinette finally regained her breath, she explained the whole situation to Damian, starting with the fact that the girl he had just chewed out was the same Lila that had been making her life miserable for the past year. The two of them shared a humorous glance, and then headed off to a different park, enjoying the rest of their lunch without worrying any more about Lila.

The next morning, as Marinette was working in the bakery taking customers’ orders, Alya showed up again. When the breakfast rush had lulled, Alya came up to the counter and apologized profusely for the way she had dismissed all of Marinette’s concerns about Lila over the past year. Alya mentioned that she had gone back to fact-check some of the things that she had posted on her blog because of Lila, and had had to take them all down because she couldn’t verify them. Marinette laughed, and agreed that fact-checking would be a good journalism habit for the future. The two quickly fell back into their old conversational routines, and their discussion stretched for hours, interrupted by the occasional customer, as they mended the divide in their friendship that had grown over the past year.

When lunchtime rolled around, Damian also showed up at the bakery, and while Marinette hung up her apron, smiling more than she had in a long time, he invited Alya to come along to lunch with them. Alya agreed, and Marinette had a marvelous lunch introducing Damian and Alya to one another. It was nice to get to discuss her soulmate with someone her age, and she was glad that she and Alya were becoming good friends once more.

The three almost lost track of time with their conversation, and Damian had to dart off back to his internship, leaving Marinette and Alya to pack the picnic back up. Just as they had gotten the last few things packed up, the Akuma Alert went off on both their phones. Marinette reassured Alya that she could handle the picnic supplies, waiting until Alya had darted off to film the attack before calling on Tikki to transform her, thanking her lucky stars that Damian had already left and she wouldn’t have to make excuses to him.

Ladybug swung over to the attack, watching the akuma rage for a few minutes before pulling open her communicator. Chat Noir’s icon was still dark, so she pinged him and then waited for a few minutes. When she didn’t hear from him, she decided that he likely couldn’t get away from his civilian life to transform. With a couple more moments of observation, though, she was sure that she knew the right temporary hero to call on. She swung by Master Fu’s shop and picked up the Fox Miraculous, and then headed back past the akuma, offering the little black and red box to the Ladyblogger.

Really, Ladybug was so glad that Alya had come to her senses, and it showed in her coordination with Rena Rouge. Between the two heroines, the akuma battle was over in just under 10 minutes, with minimal damage to the surrounding area, as Rena’s Mirage had the akuma chasing his tail for most of the battle. Ladybug called her Miraculous Cure to fix what little damage there was, then dropped Rena in an empty alleyway to detransform. She gave Alya and Trixx a few minutes to talk before she came back to collect the Miraculous, and spent the rest of the day marveling that she had one of her most reliable partners back.

Life continued uneventfully and akuma free for the next couple of days, until about a week before the Bats were supposed to arrive in Paris. Marinette had stayed up late that night, putting the finishing touches on her rundown report, so that the Bats could be fully briefed on every detail about the Hawkmoth situation. She was just about ready to head to bed when Tikki told her that Chat Noir was trying to contact her.

Ladybug transformed, opening up her communicator as the last bits of pink light washed over her. She pulled up the video chat with Chat and was shocked to see him lying down in a bed, pale and wan looking. He explained that he was walking down the stairs to grab a snack for his kwami when he saw a weird purple shape out of the corner of his eye. He turned to look at it, and missed the next stair down, resulting in a tumble down the staircase and, according to Plagg, a badly fractured bone. When she made a horrified squeak, he reassured her that he has already been taken to see a doctor as a civilian and that this was the first moment that he’s been alone enough to contact her.

“But you are healed now, right?” Ladybug fretted. 

She knew the transformation usually healed minor injuries (the number of bruises and baking accidents her transformation has healed is far too large to count), but all of their more major injuries had been dealt with by her Miraculous Cure.

Chat Noir grimaced, and she immediately knew the answer to her question. He flipped his baton around and showed her the lime green cast dotted with pawprints that Plagg had manifested on his lower leg. 

“Un _ fur _ tunately, it looks like I’m going to be out of the count for the next few months.” Chat shrugged, “It would  _ paw _ bably be easiest for us to discuss in person, why don’t you meet me at the Agreste Manor.”

Ladybug frowned in confusion as her partner abruptly hung up, but doesn’t stop to think about it for too long. Even if her kitty was feeling well enough to make some truly awful puns, she didn’t want to leave him waiting. Sleep was vital for healing, and it was already very late.

Ladybug raced over to the Agreste Manor, noticing as she swung around it that Adrien had left his window open. Since that was probably the easiest way to enter, she swung in through it, landing softly so as not to wake Adrien and closing the window behind her for safety’s sake. When she turned towards Adrien’s bed to make sure she had not woken him, she was shocked to see Chat Noir sitting there, with his leg propped up on a pile of pillows. Before she had a chance to process the implications, a wave of green light washed over Chat Noir, leaving Adrien sitting on his bed holding a whining Plagg. Ladybug opened and closed her mouth several times, not sure what to say, before simply raising her eyebrow at her impulsive partner.

“I’ve talked with Plagg about what you mentioned, that the Ladybug and Black Cat are supposed to be a soulmate pair, about how I was really just a substitute.”

Ladybug opened her mouth once again, this time to protest that she had never seen him as a second choice, but he barreled onward before she could make a sound.

“Just let me finish before you say anything. Yes, I know you don’t see me as second best, and you’d let me keep the Miraculous as long as I wanted it, but Plagg mentioned that our unbalanced magic is the reason that he and your kwami keep getting sick. And beyond that, I’m going to be inca _ paw _ citated,” he let out a small chuckle, “for at least the next two months, but the Black Cat will need to be physically present to fight and take down Hawkmoth.”

Ladybug nodded, fidgeting with her yoyo as she conceded his point.

“And with the Bats coming in next week, it’s entirely possible that the confrontation with Hawkmoth will happen while I’m still healing.” Adrien looked down at the kwami in his hands and smiled sadly, “I’ll miss Plagg, I’ll miss being a superhero, but this is bigger than me. This is about the safety of Paris, it’s about the fact that you need a partner that you can count on to show up at battles, not just temporary heroes that you have to recruit because I can’t escape from my life.”

Adrien had brought up several good points, and Ladybug found herself reluctantly agreeing with him. She sat down on the edge of his bed and talked through a few more angles with him, but it was clear that Adrien and Plagg had spent a great deal of time discussing this. As they talked it through, Ladybug was left with only one worry. Giving the Black Cat Miraculous to her soulmate would leave Adrien defenseless both physically and magically. And then, as Adrien and Plagg were saying their goodbyes, an idea struck her.

She bolted upright and off the bed, careful not to jostle Adrien. “I’ll be right back,” she promised, and then raced over to the window, opening it and swinging out into the Parisian night.

Without a Miraculous, Adrien would be totally unprotected, and the Black Cat did need to be active, but that wasn’t the only Miraculous available to her. Ladybug dropped down to street level right by Master Fu’s shop, opening the door with a key hidden in a planter nearby. She popped open the Miracle Box and grabbed a Miraculous, leaving a note for Master Fu so he would not be concerned if he noticed it missing before she had a chance to speak with him.

When she arrived back at Agreste Manor, Plagg and Adrien were packing up several rolls of cheese into a sack, having clearly said everything they were going to. When the last roll was packed away, Adrien gave one final farewell to Plagg and then renounced the Miraculous, carefully placing it back into its box and handing it to Ladybug. She took it with a sad smile, and then pulled her other hand out from behind her back, handing Adrien the miraculous she had retrieved from Master Fu’s.

Emotions flitted wildly across Adrien’s face: first confusion, then relief, and then a brief surge of delight. He opened the box, and Pollen emerged from a glowing ball of light. Ladybug waved goodbye to the pair, heading back out the window for the final time as they started to get acquainted. She swung by Master Fu’s and dropped off the Black Cat Miraculous, before heading home and detransforming just in time to fall fast asleep.

The next day, Marinette visited Master Fu first thing in the morning and gave him the rundown on the whole situation. He agreed with her that it would be irresponsible to leave Adrien unprotected, especially with how often the class is targeted by akumas and assured her that Pollen would not only be a good match for him but an excellent one. He also mentions that the bee usually plays the role of healer for an established Miracle team, and with Pollen’s powers Adrien might be able to rejoin the team sooner than would be possible on his own. Soon, though, the subject turned to the Black Cat Miraculous, and Master Fu urged Marinette to give Damian the Black Cat as soon as possible - having one of the two top-level miraculouses active without the other could cause a dangerous imbalance in both of their magics, and it would be impossible to heal Plagg if he fell ill while still inside the ring. As Marinette left, he mentioned one more important power of the Yin-Yang tier Miraculouses. Once Damian had accepted the Black Cat, she would not need to keep her identity secret from him - a properly soul bonded pair in possession of the major miraculouses would be immune to the effects of the lower tiers, such as the Butterfly’s akumatization.

That evening, Ladybug swung by the Waynes' penthouse and knocked on Damian’s window. He jumped at the noise, making a weird aborted gesture for a box by his bed, and then recovered when he looked out the window and saw Ladybug. After a moment, he beckoned her in, so Ladybug unlatched the window and swung down, careful to make as little noise as possible.

“What brings the protector of Paris to my window at this hour?” he asked, his tone guarded.

Ladybug swallowed, and held out a little black and red box. “Damian Wayne, this is the Miraculous of the Black Cat, which grants the power of destruction. You will use it for the greater good. Can I trust you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a lot heavier than previous chapters, but a least we are FINALLY getting to the plot! For a fic that started as a single scene, this has ballooned out of all control. Also, Damian kept trying to hijack the POV for the last half of the chapter, which was spectacularly unhelpful considering that he doesn't have enough context and/or knowledge to Do That.
> 
> Also, I super duper love getting comments and kudos from y'all, they definitely motivate me to keep working on this story. Comments that are just "When are you updating" or the like, actually demotivate me, though, since I can't promise to keep to a consistent updating schedule. This is the first multi-chapter work that I've really written (I've done bullet point multi-chapters, but a) never really finished them and b) that's different), and I don't really have a consistent update schedule because Adulting is Hard. I'm hoping I can finish this fic before Daminette December (my GOAL is to finish it before November so that it's done before it's a year old, but we'll see)


	7. i’m gonna be right by your side no matter what

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you are layering multiple superhero secrets on top of one another, you shouldn't be surprised when they all start to unravel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every time Damian and/or Marinette thinks of “the civilians” as a category separate from themselves my heart breaks just a smidge. Also, the overlapping POV of the same scenes are absolutely the hardest part of the fic to get correct, because I have to keep flipping back and forth to make sure nothing contradicts what I’ve already established. Like, don’t get me wrong, I’ve run through these scenes MANY times from all the POVs, but it's not like I can Trust My Brain to Store Knowledge. That's just fake.

Oftentimes Damian felt that the need to maintain distance between his civilian self and Robin was more nuisance than it was worth, but for once he felt truly glad for the necessity. Because he, Dick, and Cass had come to Paris much earlier than the Gotham heroes were expected to arrive, he had gotten to spend time with his soulmate without the pressure of secret duties. Sure, he still had his intern work at Wayne Enterprises, but he and Marinette often spent lunch together. It was nice, talking face-to-face instead of writing on their skin, and it was far easier than Damian had expected, as he knew his social skills were still somewhat lacking. 

By two weeks into Damian’s time in Paris, the two had fallen into a comfortable routine. When Damian’s lunch break started, they would meet up at one of the many parks and green spaces around the city, and spend an hour and a half talking about whatever caught their fancy before Damian went back to Wayne Enterprises. It made him feel almost normal, like a real civilian instead of the warrior playing the role of a child that he had always felt himself to be.

On one such lunch break, Damian and Marinette were headed towards the Place des Vosges, one of Marinette’s favorite parks, and chatting about their mornings. As they had reached the gates of the park Marinette paused, but before Damian had a chance to ask what was going on, he overheard a snippet of too-loud conversation from within the park.

“And if I tell you, you have to keep it a secret, Alya, Ladybug made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

Damian was moving before he had fully identified the source of the voice, darting into the park. He located the girl who had been speaking and moved towards her and her friend, quickly but subtly. Claiming to know a hero, worse, claiming to be in the confidence of a hero, was a dangerous game to play, regardless of whether or not it was true. (He doubted it was; he’d been monitoring Ladybug for years now, and if even her counterpart did not have her full confidence, it was highly unlikely that she would be telling secrets to a  _ civilian _ )

“You might want to be careful where you say things like that,” Damian hissed, caution boiling in his chest as the two girls looked up at him. “ Anyone could overhear you, and there are plenty of terrible things that can happen to people who are thought to hold the confidence of heroes.”

The secret-sharing girl laughed, ignoring the wide-eyed look of her friend. Instead of lowering her voice to avoid drawing attention, she carried on at the same volume that had initially drawn his attention. “Oh, don’t worry about me; Ladybug is far from the only hero I know.” She smirked as she continued, heedless of anyone else who might be around to overhear her, “I’ve hung out with both the Young Justice League and the Teen Titans, so I know plenty of self-defense tricks. Huntress even mentioned she was interested in taking me on as a protege when I helped her find a trafficking ring in Italy, but I had to turn her down because I couldn’t bear to leave Mamma on her own.”

Damian’s rage rose with every word of her tale, though hopefully the sheer incandesce of it did not show on his face. The fact that she would tell such outrageous lies, lies that could easily be disproved with a quick google search, and yet wield them with such confidence told him that she was a habitual liar. Well, if she was going to lie about his allies, about his friends and family, then she would have to do a far better job than that.

Damian handed his lunch off to Marinette, digging his phone out of his pocket. The best thing to do would be to hit straight at the heart of her claim, the biggest and best lie of the series. Luckily, he had done enough searching for superheroes via the computer at home that he knew exactly what keywords to use to pull up the perfect article to prove his point. And since the girl had no qualms about lying loudly, he did not bother to keep his voice low as he snarled back at her.

“None of the teams associated with the Justice League, including the Teen Titans and the Young Justice would ever involve civilians in their work, especially not to ‘hang out with them’ at their secret headquarters!.” With two quick jabs at his phone, he had the article pulled up. “They have made repeated press statements that the work they do is Far. Too. Dangerous. And furthermore,” he brandished his phone at the girl, Huntress’ interview about her regret that she never visited her family’s homeland splashed bold across the page, “despite the fact that she is from an Italian family, HUNTRESS HAS NEVER BEEN TO ITALY!”

The darker-skinned girl, who had been edging away since he had stormed up, leaned back towards her friend, peering at Damian’s phone. It was pretty clear when she managed to read the bit of the article that Damian had pulled up because she whipped her head around towards her friend, indignation flaring in her eyes. Damian, however, was done dealing with the liar, and would much rather spend his lunch break with Marinette than dealing with whatever nonsense was about to occur. He headed back towards the entrance of the park, carefully taking his lunch back from Marinette, and asking her if there was another park that she would like to eat at. He hoped she would understand the question as somewhat of an apology for making an unpleasant scene in her favorite park.

Marinette nodded and headed out of the park with him, so that was probably a good sign that she wasn’t super upset. He was still expecting her to be a bit put out, though, so when she started laughing almost uncontrollably a block or so away from the park, Damian was very confused. He waited, perplexed, while Marinette managed to recover enough to explain.

“I can’t believe you were able to call Lila out on her lies the very first time we ran into her!” Marinette muttered, laughter still overlaying her words.

“Lila?” The name was familiar, but it still took Damian a moment before he could place it. “The girl whose lies have been driving your friends away over the past year?”

Marinette nodded. “And the girl with her was Alya, the Ladyblog reporter. Between the article that you showed her, and the look she saw on Lila’s face when you walked away, she’s probably got a lot of fact-checking to do tonight.”

Damian smiled at her brightly, as they resumed walking. “I’m glad I could take care of that nuisance for you, Angel.”

The rest of their lunch passed uneventfully, but throughout the rest of the day, Damian couldn’t shake the thought worrying in the back of his head. Lies about heroes were dangerous, and the fact that anyone was willing to lie about knowing them personally meant that they weren’t taking the threat of Hawkmoth seriously. He might have brushed it off as a one-off occurrence, but the more he thought about it the more it seemed like a pattern of negligence across Paris. The handful of times that he’d seen an akuma attack, people hadn’t seemed overly afraid of them, and indeed, if he was recalling correctly, he’d even seen a handful of people heading towards them instead of away. And the officials seemed content to let Ladybug and the other heroes deal with any cleanup that might be needed after the fight, such as returning the victims to their homes.

He puzzled over it for the rest of the day, before he realized why no one in Paris was taking the threat of Hawkmoth seriously. Ladybug’s Miraculous Cure restored any damage that the superhero fights caused to the city, so unless people were directly affected by the akuma, they had no reason to view the superhero battles as anything more than a temporary inconvenience, at worst. With no lasting repercussions, Hawkmoth was little more than a pest to the general population of Paris, a far cry from the terror that Damian was used to from villains.

Of course, just because the general populous did not view Hawkmoth as a problem, did not mean that he shouldn’t be taken seriously. Damian remembered a handful of interviews from Ladybug that implied that Hawkmoth’s pursuit of the Miraculous could have world-altering effects, which meant that Hawkmoth was a threat _at_ _least_ on par with Scarecrow. In fact, the more Damian thought about it the more concerned he became. He knew Ladybug, at least, was taking the issue fairly seriously because she had gone through the effort of seeking out Batman in his own territory to gain assistance. But if everyone else simply brushed it off, then she would either be under an incredible amount of stress or else be subconsciously downplaying the issues, neither of which boded well.

Damian kept turning the implications over in his head for the next few days, trying to decide the best course of action. He was glad that Marinette’s friend Alya had come to her senses and mended the gap that had grown over the past year, because Marinette’s focus was mainly on her friend, and so she did not notice his preoccupation.

Damian went back through the news clips and re-watched old akuma battles, and dread started to settle in his gut. Even worse than just the civilians not taking the battle seriously (a stance he confirmed by repeated instances of people complaining about the length and location of battles, or by attempting to carry on with their life while a battle raged around them), it appeared that few of the auxiliary heroes were taking the battles seriously either. 

Rena Rouge seemed to view them as a game, pulling out her Mirage just in the nick of time and fangirling over Ladybug whenever she got the chance. Carapace seemed to see the battles as a way to hang out with Rena and spent way more time focused on her than on aiding Ladybug in combat. And the less said about Queen Bee, the better, although she had not appeared in battle for quite some time, and Damian suspected that she had been removed from the roster after compromising her identity.

In fact, other than Ladybug, only Chat Noir, Ryuko, and Multimouse seemed to be aware of the dangers of the battle. Chat Noir and Multimouse rarely made appearances, but when they did they were always clearly focused on the battle, even with Chat Noir’s attempts at levity. Ryuko was a much more frequent hero, though still not as frequent as Ladybug herself, and she fought with a single-minded passion that indicated both skill and forethought in battle.

And so Damian’s worries increased, day-by-day until he was contemplating going out as Robin even before the day that the Bats were supposed to meet up with Ladybug. He pulled the box containing his equipment out from under his bed and stared at it, trying to decide. At this point, he and Dick and Cass had been in the city for long enough that it wouldn’t really be suspicious if Robin was seen (although if he did decide to go out he would need to text Alfred, to make sure Ms. Martian didn’t show up as Robin in Gotham on the same night he was out in Paris). Just as he had about made up his mind, a sharp knock sounded against his window. Damian jumped, thankful that he had not opened the box yet. He started to shove the box under his bed, but then decided that would be more suspicious, and whirled around to face the window.  Ladybug was hanging there, and she gave him a small wave. 

Damian ran through several scenarios, trying to figure out how she had uncovered his identity since he had not interacted with her yet, but with no real idea, he beckoned her in, prepared to play dumb as much as possible. Ladybug unlatched the window and swung down, almost noiselessly, and Damian decided that, as usual, the best defense is a good offense.

“What brings the protector of Paris to my window at this hour?” he asked, his tone guarded.

Ladybug swallowed and held out a little black and red box. “Damian Wayne, this is the Miraculous of the Black Cat, which grants the power of destruction. You will use it for the greater good. Can I trust you?”

Damian’s entire train of thought ground to a halt, and then immediately started whirring again. Clearly Ladybug was not here because she had found out his identity, but this raised even more questions than it resolved. 

“Isn’t that Chat Noir’s Miraculous?” he asked, stalling. 

Ladybug answered with some details about Chat Noir being out of commission due to an injury, but Damian barely listened as his mind raced. There was no way that he could juggle the Black Cat Miraculous and his other obligations at the same time without letting  _ something _ slip, but Ladybug wasn’t necessarily expecting Robin specifically; the Bats had decided who would go to Paris after Ladybug had left. He would have to tell his siblings, of course, so they did not wonder why Robin did not come with them to meet up with Ladybug, but really the main question was -

“Why would you pick me to wield the Black Cat,” Damian asked, raising an eyebrow. “I am not a Parisian, I’m only here for the summer, and it’s not as if we’ve had any interactions before.”

Ladybug stared at him for a long moment, opening and closing her mouth several times.

“It has to do with the way the Miraculous energy matches with people’s personalities, like a soulbond,” she said. 

Damian started to ask another question, but Ladybug shook her head. “I can’t be any more specific unless you accept the Miraculous.”

He mulled it over for another moment or two. It sounded like there was further rationale for him receiving the Miraculous, and the mention of his soulbond already had him alarmed - if Marinette was involved with the Parisian superheroes that would rapidly increase the amount of danger she was in. And, if Chat Noir was any indication, it appeared to be possible to give up the Miraculous, so it’s not like he was making a life-long commitment. Decided, he nodded once, sharply, and held out his hand. Ladybug handed him the red and black box with a smile that almost looked relieved.

Damian lifted the lid off the box and kept himself from visibly startling when a small cat-like creature appeared in a flash of light, hovering in front of him. The creature looked him up and down and nodded once.

“Certainly has more of a destructive streak than my last Holder.” The cat-like creature rose up to Damian’s eye level, flipping upside-down as it went. “I’m Plagg, nice to meet-cha. Say, you wouldn’t happen to have any cheese lying around would ya?”

Damian blinked, taken aback by the abrupt nature of this Plagg creature. Before he even started to speak, either to answer Plagg’s question or to demand further explanation, Plagg flipped around in the air again, facing Ladybug.

“And Pigtails, don’t go running off just yet. I still need to talk to Tikki.”

Ladybug jumped as if she had been electrocuted. “Wha- bu- NOW??? I don't - I’m not ready, I-”

The floating cat - and Damian was really hoping that would be clarified sooner rather than later - waved one of his paws. “I’m sure the kid here has someplace you can detransform without anyone seeing.”

And that was when Damian’s patience, never his strong suit, ran out. “Look, Plagg, right? I don't know what you're doing here, or how you are related to the Miraculous, care to elucidate the situation?”

“Look, I'm a kwami. I power the Miraculous of Destruction and help you turn into the Black Cat hero with that ring in return for lots and lots of delicious cheese. My counterpart Tikki powers Ladybug and I need to talk to her, which means Pigtails has to detransform. Capisce?”

Damian narrowed his eyes at the kwami and then looked over at Ladybug, who shrugged at him. Damian huffed and then opened the door to the bathroom since it was clear that further answers would not be forthcoming.

“You can transform in here; there no windows and only the one door.”

Ladybug thanked him and darted in, a flash of pink light glowing from under the door seconds after she closed it. And then a small red blob phased through the door and dragged Plagg off into another corner of Damian’s room to talk. He tried to listen in, but quickly gave it up as a lost cause when he discovered that the sounds they were making were both too high pitched and too quiet for him to follow. Instead, he sat down on the box full of Robin gear that was still sitting next to his bed, and tried to get his thoughts in order.

After a minute or two, the two kwami’s finished their conversation, and the red-spotted one, Tikki?, flew back through the bathroom door, while Plagg flew back towards Damian. This time, instead of a haphazard introduction, Plagg gave him a basic rundown on the transformation - claws on to transform, claws off to change back, a super-suit that can take an increased beating and augments natural speed and strength - and the powers of the Black Cat - Cataclysm causes increased entropy in what you touch, Miraculous Curse creates an area of chaos, and Rending Strike delivers concentrated bad luck to another Miraculous Holder, severing them from their Miraculous.

With a better grounding of what to expect, Damian glanced down at the ring, which had turned into a simple black band on his finger, and then over at Plagg. The kwami nodded, and Damian swiped his hand through the air, open palm facing his chest. “Plagg, claws out!”

Plagg spun into the ring, and green and black bubbled out from it in a flash of light. Damian laced his fingers together and stretched them forwards as the light raced up his arms and over his chest. A quick lunge forward and lights spread down his legs, building a suit that felt similar to the body armor he wore as Robin. He reached up to tap his face and felt a domino mask settle into place, and a weight settled onto his head and shoulders. And just as the light started to fade, a short black staff thunked into his hands as he shifted into a defensive square stance, his muscle memory of ancient bo staff lessons taking over.

As the light cleared, Damian spotted another pink flare of light emanating from under his bathroom door, likely Ladybug re-transforming, but he ignored it in favor of walking over to his mirror to see what kind of suit the Black Cat came with. He was expecting to see the same leather, and boots look that Chat Noir had had, but a single step told him his outfit was different, as he could feel a cape tugging on his shoulders. Sure enough, as he stepped in front of the mirror he saw that his outfit was very different from Chat Noir’s. He was wearing a pitch-black tunic with leggings, with a similar silhouette to his Robin uniform, although it was unique enough that no would draw an immediate comparison. The tunic had a lime green belt and golden buttons and seemed to be reinforced with body armor by the feel of it. Over top of the tunic, was a black cape, edged in lime green, and clasped with a golden bell. The cape’s hood was pulled up over Damian’s head, and perched atop it were two cat ears, with the same lime green lining the insides. Looking down at his hands, Damian admired the lime green gloves which provided a stark contrast to the Miraculous, which had transformed into a much larger black ring with a flat face and green paw print. 

Damian pushed the cat-eared hood off of his head and blinked as his vision shifted subtly, but before he could investigate further a shocked shriek sounded from his bathroom. He whirled around just in time to see the door open, and Ladybug emerged, with a suit that was very different from her usual.

Damian raised an eyebrow, and Ladybug sighed. “I think Tikki and Plagg decided we should match.”

Indeed, their suits seemed tailor-made to complement each other. Ladybugs was now wearing a bright red tang suit, with black embellishments and dots. Her iconic yoyo peeked out from under the edge of the suit’s top, clearly attached to a hidden belt. And over her shoulders sat a cape in the same shape as Damian’s, a deep black with red piping, and antennae perched atop her head instead of ears.

Ladybug unhooked her yoyo from her belt and started twirling it as she walked towards the window. “Do you have time to come patrolling with me?” she asked. “I like to give you a rundown on the Hawkmoth situation; from my experience, Plagg isn't the most informative creature ever.”

Damian followed her out the window, cautious at first, but he quickly adjusted to leaping across the Parisian skyline. The Miraculous transformation clearly enhanced his abilities beyond those of a standard human; he could jump much higher and further than physics would normally allow. And using his bo staff to aid him was almost intuitive - it seemed to grow and shrink to meet his needs. He followed Ladybug through the night, and they fell into an easy rhythm. Ladybug gave him a detailed rundown of the struggle against Hawkmoth, and the general powers of the Miraculous. Most of it Damian had already been able to glean from his in-depth analysis over the past two years as he had been worrying about Marinette, but there were some new pieces of information, like the fact that Hawkmoth wanted the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculouses in order to make a reality-altering wish.

The pair patrolled for almost two hours, with Ladybug passing on knowledge in fits and starts. As they headed back towards the Waynes’ penthouse, Ladybug began emphasizing heavily the importance of keeping his identity secret, after she mentioned that the kwamis created a glamor that would prevent identification in most situations apart from a direct reveal. Damian figured it was the standard superhero secrecy until Ladybug mentioned that Hawkmoth might be able to pull their identities from the minds of an akuma victim if anyone knew about them. That gave him pause, but before he had time to process it, they landed on the roof of the penthouse, and Ladybug nodded a goodbye. She threw her yoyo out and latched on to something, clearly ready to leave, but then paused, and looked over her shoulder at him.

“And speaking of identities, what name should I use when you are transformed?” she asked, tugging on her rope.

Damian paused for a moment, and then a slow smile crept across his face. “Qat Mujnah[1],” he said, and then jumped down through his still-open window. He closed the window and released his transformation, and in a flash of bright green light was back in the clothes he had been wearing earlier. Plagg floated up and started whining about cheese, so Damian took a quick detour to the kitchen to grab some (Munster, to Plagg’s clear displeasure) before shoving the still-closed box of Robin equipment back under his bed and going to sleep.

The next morning, Damian woke up before sunrise, intending to do his usual morning katas. When he opened his eyes, however, Plagg was floating right above his nose, smirking.

“Qat Mujnah, huh? That wouldn’t have anything to do with the …feathers in the box under your bed?”

Damian’s eyes flashed, and he snatched at Plagg, lightning quick. “That remains a secret, understand?”

Plagg rolled his eyes and phased out of Damian’s hands. “Re-lax, kid, I know the importance of a secret identity.”

Damian was skeptical; what little experience he had of Plagg seemed more lackadaisical, but he supposed that powering a Miraculous would involve at least a low level of constant secret-keeping, so he decided to give Plagg the benefit of the doubt for now. As Plagg started verbally poking at Damian, trying to guess the identities of the rest of the Bats, Damian simply ignored him, preparing for the day, and mulling over what he would need to do about his duties as Robin while he was running around as Qat Mujnah.

By lunchtime, Damian had settled on a plan. Although his first instinct had been to tell his siblings outright so that there would be no problems when they went to meet up with Ladybug, the spotted heroine’s warning about Hawkmoth kept echoing in his head. Luckily, more than 20 years of experience with superheroic meant that the family had developed some procedures for situations where they needed operational secrecy. Damian called up Alfred and initiated a Code Thomas, the policy for a no-questions-asked halt to a particular Bat’s activity. Alfred would pass along to Dick and Cass that they shouldn’t expect Robin to be out heroing for a while, and hopefully the double layer of obfustication would be enough for the kwamis’ identity protection glamor to hold.

Over the next week, Damian settled into his new duties as Qat Mujnah. He ran patrol with Ladybug every night, and he showed up to both akuma battles that occurred that week. (Luckily he hadn’t had to ditch out on Marinette yet; he still wasn’t sure how he was going to excuse that if it happened.) Every time he showed up to a battle or patrol, Ladybug seemed a little bit lighter as if a great weight was being lifted off of her shoulders by increments. He even got to speak with Chat Noir (now Bumblebee) via staff-enabled video call, and Bumblebee passed on some additional tips for welding Cataclysm and the staff to greater effect. Even Plagg was beginning to grow on Damian, although the fact that he was always around was, at times, more than a bit aggravating. And Paris quickly warmed to its new hero; although many people were skeptical at first (No one had seen a Miraculous change hands before), as Qat Mujnah proved himself to be a solid, reliable presence at akuma battles they dropped their suspicions in favor of praise.

When Nightwing and Black Bat finally made their debut in Paris, Qat Mujnah and Ladybug met them near the top of the Eiffel Tower. The Bats listened carefully as Ladybug laid out the situation with Hawkmoth, and then the four of them got to work on a plan to try and track him down. Initially, Black Bat suggested using the CCTV cameras scattered around Paris to try to backtrack the akumas to their origin, but, after some investigation, they discovered that the akumas did not show up on camera, much like the kwamis. Eventually, they managed to work out a vague radius of where Hawkmoth could be operating based on previous akuma attacks and figured out a way to narrow it down further based on the direction the akumas came from. the four heroes worked out a schedule that allowed them to have near-continuous monitoring of the skies above Paris so that when akumas appeared they could use them to triangulate Hawkmoth’s location. And then, once an akuma showed up, all four heroes could join in the battle.

Qat Mujnah wasn’t entirely happy with the plan, but he conceded that it gave them the best chance of tracking down Hawkmoth. The main issue that he had was that it was going to cut into his time with Marinette. More than that, it was going to mean making excuses or possibly even outright lying to his soulmate about why he couldn’t hang out with her, and lying to his soulmate was something that he never wanted to do. He had gotten lucky so far with his superheroes - back in Gotham he just left out the things he did as Robin when telling her about his day, and the handful of akumas that he had dealt with as Qat Mujnah hadn’t coincided with times that he had planned to hang out with Marinette.

For the first couple of days, his luck held. Any time he needed to duck out for one of his sky-watching shifts, he would mention that he had to attend a thing his siblings had planned - not only was it technically true, but it was also unspecific enough that he could keep reusing it, especially since Marinette seemed to think his siblings were dragging him around to all the tourist traps in Paris, judging by her ribbing. Unfortunately, it meant even less time spent with her; her fashion commissions seemed to be picking up more as the summer progressed, and she’d occasionally write to cancel plans because she had to “spend the time working on a project.” So the two of them returned to their habit of writing to one another on their arms, passing notes throughout the day to keep each other company.

The Black Cat Miraculous is the embodiment of bad luck, however, and after a few days it caught up with him. Although the akuma tracking was helping them narrow down the list of possible locations where Hawkmoth could be hiding, it was slow going, and with so many different secrets, something was bound to give. Irritatingly, it wasn’t even the akuma-tracking that was his downfall; just an ordinary akuma battle. 

Damian and Marinette had gone for their usual lunch-in-the-park, on one of the increasingly rare occasions where they were both free. Dick happened to be taking a break as well, and joined them for lunch; he and Marinette got along fantastically and spent a good bit of the meal ribbing Damian good-naturedly. Unfortunately, as they were packing up, an akuma smashed through the park, blasting trees, benches, and other structures. Damian knew that he should be trying to find a place to slip off and transform into Qat Mujnah, but his first priority was to get Marinette to safety since she was a civilian. Apparently, Dick had a similar plan, and the three of them quickly found shelter underneath the overturned carousel. Once they were there, though, Marinette tried to slip off again, protesting the need to help other people evacuate the park, but the thud of a flying bench landing right in front of their shelter highlighted Damian’s insistence that it wasn’t safe. Damian hoped that Black Bat and Ladybug would be able to handle the akuma on their own since neither he nor Dick could slip off after they had protested Marinette’s attempt to do the same.

The sounds of the akuma battle raged around them as the minutes ticked on, and eventually, the battle shifted around the park, and all three were able to get glimpses of it around the side of the carousel. It looked like Black Bat was really struggling to hold her own against the akuma, and there was still no sign of Ladybug, which was unusual - she almost always made it to battles in mere minutes. Damian looked over at Marinette, trying once more to gauge if he could slip off to help Black Bat without Marinette endangering herself in a well-intentioned attempt to aid other civilians, and noticed that she was worrying at her lip and glancing at Dick. Damian looked over at his brother and caught his determination, for just a split second.

“I think-” they both began speaking at the same time, voices overlapping, and then paused again. Marinette nodded a quick you-first gesture at Dick.

“Marinette, I think it’s time we let you in on a family secret.” Dick glanced over at Damian, who nodded in confirmation. Black Bat needed assistance ASAP, and Marinette was one of the few people in Paris who seemed to understand the importance of secret identities. He’d heard her debating it with Alya enough time to know where she stood on the issue and to know that if they told her about their family she’d guard the secret close.

“The Gotham heroes showing up in Paris after our arrival was no coincidence.” Dick reached into the messenger bag that he always carried, and pulled his Nightwing outfit out from the secret pocket in the bottom. “As Damian’s soulmate, it was always the plan to tell you, though this certainly wasn’t how we expected to.” He flashed his infamous Dick Grayson charming smile as he ducked behind one of the carousel horses, quickly swapping outfits. “I’m sure Damian can answer any of your questions; I have to go help Cass.”

Damian rubbed his forehead as Nightwing ducked out from under the carousel and headed towards the akuma battle, and then turned back to Marinette. She stood there for a moment, looking gobsmacked, and then a bit chagrined.

“Dick … is Nightwing. ..ok then.” She paused for a moment. “Wait,  _ family _ secret, and helping Cass…” She narrowed her eyes at Damian, and he kept himself steady under her scrutiny. “Then you must be... Robin.”

Damian nodded, cautiously. She was taking this much better than he had expected, although admittedly he had never been around any of the times the family had needed to let a civilian know their secret. He opened his mouth to explain the whole family to her, but before he got a chance she burst out laughing.

“No wonder you took to the Miraculous so easily; becoming Qat Mujnah would have been a huge adjustment for a civilian, but not so much for Robin!”

Damian felt like he had been whacked over the head with a board. The only one who knew Qat Mujnah’s identity was- and even before he could finish the thought the same little red-and-black kwami that he had seen a week and a half ago was flying up out of Marinette’s bag. Before he had a chance to recover, she had already transformed in a flash of light and raced off towards the battle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1]قط مجنح (My best research indicates that this means winged cat in Arabic, but I don’t speak any Arabic at all, so feel free to drop a correcting comment if there is a better translation for winged cat)
> 
> Marinette’s reasoning for not immediately telling Damian about her identity, despite what Master Fu said will be revealed in the next chapter - I tried to hint at it, but honestly Damian wouldn’t have any reason to expect Ladybug to share her identity, so I doubt it came across.  
I’m working on this fic for NaNoWriMo, so, hopefully, the next chapter will be out a lot sooner! We are also nearing the end of the story, which is good because this fic is sooo much longer than I expected when I started writing with just a single scene in mind!


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